University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Local votes and outside money: campaign contribution geographic origins and their impact on Los Angeles City Council election outcomes

(USC Thesis Other)

Local votes and outside money: campaign contribution geographic origins and their impact on Los Angeles City Council election outcomes

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content

LOCAL VOTES AND OUTSIDE MONEY:
CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION GEOGRAPHIC ORIGINS
AND THEIR IMPACT ON
LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCIL ELECTION OUTCOMES

by

Brian A. Micó Quinn

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SOL PRICE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF POLICY, PLANNING, AND DEVELOPMENT

December 2022

Copyright 2022 Brian A. Micó Quinn

ii

Acknowledgments

My heartfelt gratitude goes to Lizette, Alice, Max, and Clara, who were by my side through
the journey of study, research, and writing. This work was undertaken to inspire them in having their
own curiosity to question the systems that impact the world around us. With the love and support of
my family, I succeeded in reaching my goal. It is to them that I primarily dedicate this work and
accomplishment.
Acknowledgment and gratitude also go to Erin Ann Quinn, my mother, who provided the
roadmap to attain the highest levels of education as part of my life’s journey. Not only did she raise
my awareness of the importance of constant learning, but she also showed me through example. Her
review of my manuscripts and guidance were critical to pushing me towards completion. An
additional thank you to my doctoral committee chair, Dr. Peter Robertson. I am fortunate to have
partnered with a brilliant and thoughtful advisor. Without this guidance and interest, this work
would not be of the same quality.
Lastly, a special dedication to Josef Bray-Ali, whose community leadership work inspired this
study. The truths uncovered in these pages are a testament to his own experience challenging the
establishment to represent our neighborhoods. All humans have the power to work towards a better
world, not merely accepting things as they currently are.

iii
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................................................ ii
LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................................................... iv
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................................... v
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE OF STUDY .................................................................................. 1
DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION ............................................................................................................. 2
DECLINING VOTER PARTICIPATION TRENDS ............................................................................................... 4
CALIFORNIA STATE LEGISLATURE AS PATH TO CITY COUNCIL ............................................................... 6
CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY ...................................................................................................................... 7
RESEARCH QUESTION AND STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS ........................................................................ 9
OUTLINE FOR THE REMAINDER OF DISSERTATION .................................................................................... 9
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................................... 10
ORIGINS OF TERRITORIALITY AND THE SOVEREIGN STATE SYSTEM .................................................. 10
MODERN AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND CAMPAIGN REGULATION ...................................................... 12
POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEES AS FINANCING TOOLS ........................................................................ 14
CAMPAIGN FINANCING ..................................................................................................................................... 17
FUNDRAISING COALITIONS ............................................................................................................................. 22
CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS IN LOS ANGELES .............................................................................................. 23
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................. 25
DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES ................................................................................................................. 25
DEPENDENT VARIABLE .................................................................................................................................... 26
EXPLANATORY VARIABLES .............................................................................................................................. 26
CONTROL VARIABLES ........................................................................................................................................ 27
DATA CODING ..................................................................................................................................................... 28
DATA ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................................................... 32
CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS ......................................................................................................................................... 33
CANDIDATE FINDINGS ...................................................................................................................................... 33
FUNDRAISING AND ELECTION FINDINGS ................................................................................................... 33
REGRESSION RESULTS ....................................................................................................................................... 43
SUMMARY OF CHAPTER ..................................................................................................................................... 44
CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION AND EVALUATION .................................................................................................. 45
DISCUSSION .......................................................................................................................................................... 45
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY ........................................................................................................................... 53
POLICY IMPLICATIONS ...................................................................................................................................... 54
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................................ 56
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................................. 58
APPENDICES ............................................................................................................................................................. 61
STATISTICAL REGRESSION RESULTS .............................................................................................................. 61
iv
List of Figures
Figure 1:
Geographic Distribution of Contributions in Selection of U.S. Cities ...………………………… …21
Figure 2:
Los Angeles Zip Code Map…………………………………………………….…………………28
Figure 3:
Los Angeles City Boundaries and Council District Map 2012–2022……………………………….29
Figure 4:
Los Angeles City to Zip Code Mapping ..…………………………………………………………30
Figure 5:
Total Contributions by Contributor Type..………………….…………………………….……….34
Figure 6:
All Candidate Funds Raised by Geography..……………………………………………………….35
Figure 7:
Average Percentage of Contributions Raised by Top Two Performing Candidates by Geography....36
Figure 8:
Average Funds Raised by Incumbents, Former Legislators, and Challengers ..…. ….………………37
Figure 9:
Los Angeles City Council Election and Fundraising Results ..………………………………………38
Figure 10:
Average PAC Expenditures on Behalf of Top Two Candidates ...………………………….……….50
Figure 11:
Average PAC Expenditures Compared to Primary Contributions of Top Two Candidates..……….52
v
Abstract
With technological advances and ever easier methods for transferring funds, campaign
fundraising has increasingly nationalized in recent decades, even at the local level. At the same time,
ever growing campaign spending has created barriers to entry for potential challengers to seek
representative office against established politicians. This study aims to understand the influence that
campaign donations sourced from areas not geographically represented had on the outcome of Los
Angeles City Council primary elections between 2013-2020. Past research has shown that most local
campaign contributions go to incumbent candidates and come from the municipality and
surrounding suburbs. Using a methodology that categorized campaign contributions by geography,
electoral success was measured in relation to the source of candidate financing while controlling for
incumbency and previous state legislature experience. Though not the primary focus, this study also
assessed data on independent political expenditures to understand their role in electoral outcomes.
Most campaign contributions in Los Angeles City Council elections continue to come from the city,
surrounding suburbs, and counties. The findings express that raising large amounts of money, both
inside and outside the city is highly predictive of electoral victory. The delta in financial support
between winning candidates and their closest competitors is large with a widening gap. Those
winning elections are typically incumbents or candidates that previously served on the California
state legislature. The data highlight a trend that is making Los Angeles local elections less
competitive each election cycle.

1

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE OF STUDY

Democracy is at the core of the American policy process, ultimately expressed through
publicly elected officials drafting, implementing, and maintaining policies that shape the day-to-day
life of the people they geographically represent within the government. Through the democratic
process, individual citizens vote for representatives to serve their interests within governmental
institutions. Democracy is a political system that allows the citizens to participate in political
decision-making or elect representatives to government bodies. In the United States, a representative
democratic system exists in which citizens indirectly participate in decision-making through the
election of representatives. This form of democracy is often simplified to the act of voting being the
citizen's participatory action. The financing of political candidates is given less importance and
minimal attention as part of the process. This study emphasizes candidate financing as a crucial
element to deliberate as part of this democratic process, considering that donations can be sourced
from anywhere in the United States for an election campaign, even in a local election.
This study asks the question, how does the source of funding impact voter choice within
city government elections? The study will answer the question by measuring out-of-district campaign
contributions made to candidate campaigns and their impact on the democratic outcomes in local
elections. The analysis used data from the city of Los Angeles, a major global city. The latest U.S.
census in 2020 reports a population of 3.9 million, making it the second largest city in the United
States. As of 2018, the Los Angeles Metropolitan area’s economy has a gross metropolitan product
of over $1 trillion. Because of its size and influence on the global economy, interests in the politics
of this city exist beyond the immediate population. The study will analyze financial influences in city
council elections through the measurement of geographic sourcing of campaign contributions.
Though Los Angeles is not a typical city, it is critical to understand its democratic process because it

2

can inform our shared understanding in this specific circumstance, as well as democracy in cities
throughout the country, where similar or even less regulated campaign finance rules exist.

DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION
Democratic ideals have been one of the societal values within United States’ culture since the
nation-state declared itself independent from an absolute monarchy in the year 1776. Norms and
virtues have developed within society based upon a core belief that government is by and for the
people. These norms are instilled in the country's youth through public education and popular
media. Ideals held about a government representing the people constitute a significant part of
society's shared belief system. Beyond the internal importance of these values, they are also
projected outward to other parts of the world. American leaders speak of exceptionalism and global
leadership, and it is the democratic ideal that legitimizes the U.S. government and its actions around
the globe. Despite significant wealth disparities, the American myth and popularized belief system
present the right to vote as the great equalizer between classes within American society.
These idealistic conceptions of American democracy stand in stark contrast to a parallel
narrative of low voter participation and low public trust in government institutions. Over decades it
has been seen that a significant percentage of eligible voters do not participate in electing
representatives, with only slightly more than half of the voting-age population voting in presidential
elections (Lutz & Marsh 2007). The participation rate in municipal elections averages half that of the
presidential contests (Morlan 1984), with California often ranking amongst the worst rates in the
nation, with less than a quarter of eligible voters casting their vote in city government elections
(Bridges 1997). Overall, the United States ranks very low in voter participation for western
democracies, with some voters reluctant to participate in the democratic system (Piven & Cloward
2000).

3

Eligible voters may feel distant and unable to have an impact on the direction of the
government. Distance between the individual and government is logical at the federal level, but local
elections offer proximity between the individual and government that should encourage strong
participation. Ideally, it is at the local election level where true democracy should have an
opportunity to flourish, as anyone from the community can more easily participate in the issues of
their locality. One problem is that the amount of money needed to participate in local elections
creates a barrier for community leaders to emerge and lead. Arguments supporting limits on
campaign finance highlight how the need to raise such large amounts of money to run a competitive
race makes it increasingly challenging for perfectly well-qualified and well-suited potential leaders to
participate in the election process (Adams 2010).
This study recognizes that representative district boundaries are an essential feature of
democracy. Every political system in the history of the world has been designed based upon an
authority over a geographical territory, including the modern democracy in the United States. The
entire U.S. government is organized in relation to geographical boundaries. Whether at the local,
state, or federal level, regions that individuals are elected to represent are tied to a specific
geographical territory. The elected official is the representative of the people that live within a
geographical area. Do the voters represented by an elected official determine the outcome of an
election, or does financing by individuals outside the voting region influence election outcomes in
democratic elections? Again, this is the core question that this study seeks to understand.
Democratic elections imply that the outcome of an election within a designated geographic
region will represent the will of the inhabitant voters. For purposes of this study, city government is
considered to have the most defined and limited constituent basis for measuring elected
representation. It is reasonable to assume that the inhabitants within a city district would have the
most direct impact in determining the elected leaders within their community. At the city level, the

4

most proximate connection exists between government and the direct services that impact citizens'
daily lives (schools, streets, libraries, parks, etc.). It is also at this level of politics that the individual
citizen is most easily able to participate, either by joining a campaign, walking door-to-door in
support of a local candidate, or even running for a city office to represent their community. Local
city elections offer an opportunity for the individual to have a meaningful impact on the outcome of
elections. At this level of government, the composition of elected officials should most directly
reflect the will of the people within a specific geographical region. This study seeks to measure to
what extent political funds from individuals, political committees, and business interests outside a
municipality impact election outcomes. Of course, there are other interests that would make an
individual or organization donate to an election in which they do not have a direct geographic
connection, such as economic or ideological interests. Still, for this study, we will consider
contributions from those who do not reside or operate in the city of Los Angeles as an outside
influence.

DECLINING VOTER PARTICIPATION TRENDS
In an ideal utopian sense, democracy is a marvelous system for societies to self-govern.
Through the will of the majority of individuals able to vote within a community, representatives are
selected for office and create policies that reflect that majority's interests. It is an equitable system
compared to absolute monarchies and totalitarian systems in which a single individual holds power.
Because of this ideal view of the democratic system, many Americans are proud to support and
nurture democracy so that it continues for generations to come. The question stands, if most eligible
people don't vote, does the system genuinely meet up to those idealistic standards? Systemic flaws
are highlighted when considering dismal participation rates in elections and the waste created by
allocating so much money to campaigning. Those supporting ever-increasing political campaign

5

budgets often cite studies showing that higher spending leads to increased voter turnout
(Weinschenk & Holbrook 2014). This theory sounds very positive in its encouragement of unlimited
spending in elections, and more people voting should always be encouraged. Yet, this correlation
does not seem sustainable when society sees ever-increasing election budgets far surpassing the
inflation rate, cycle after cycle.
1

Increases in election spending stand in contrast to the drift towards decreased voter
participation (Albert 2017).

Continuing a long-term trend, the last two decades of voter participation
in U.S. presidential elections has been roughly more than half of eligible voters.
2
Los Angeles
County's presidential and municipal elections participation is lower than the national average. The
off-cycle primaries held when there were no presidential elections exhibit even poorer results, with
the 1998 Los Angeles primary having a 27.9% turnout, followed by 19.1% participation in 2002,
18.5% on 2006, 17.6% in 2010, 16.3% in 2012, and 13.6% turnout in 2014.
3
Average participation
rates for local elections during off-cycle years were found to experience a 36% decrease in
participation rates from presidential polls for registered voters in a survey of 350 California cities
(Hajnal & Lewis 2003). It is an unfortunate trend because primaries have the lowest participation
rates and are essential competitive elections offering an entrance opportunity for non-incumbent
candidates. Though the last few elections in Los Angeles have seen increased participation, the
overall trend shows that the electorate is not highly participatory in selecting their own local leaders.
As a society, we must ask ourselves, why?
In seeking an understanding of eligible voter participation, we often look to societal
narratives for explanation. Unfortunately, there are competing beliefs about the weight one vote
carries in our democracy. The issue is complex and difficult to assign causality to why so few eligible

1
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/10/2020-election-to-near-11-billion-in-total-spending-smashing-records/
2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections
3
http://www.laalmanac.com/election/el02.php

6

voters participate in elections. Some state that 'every vote is critical’, arguing that everyone should
vote and that each ballot is critically impactful in the outcome of elections. The opposite narrative
also exists, stating that 'one vote does not impact the outcome of an election’ (Jacob 2015). Others
believe that the system is simply rigged and votes don’t matter. The belief that election outcomes are
biased towards the rich and powerful is a powerful one that limits participation by some, and data
supports this showing that working-class people don’t tend to run for office at the rates of the rich
(Carnes 2018). This analysis of geographic financial support in local elections compliments the
debate on voter participation through a better understanding of the monetary influences that impact
outcomes in local elections.

CALIFORNIA STATE LEGISLATURE AS PATH TO CITY COUNCIL
The city of Los Angeles has a unique attribute in the composition of its government. Recent
history has shown that the Los Angeles City Council is an attractive office for professional
politicians that have been termed out of the California state legislature. Traditionally, a city council is
a steppingstone for beginner politicians to enter the political field, but with the competition and
financial resources that these professional politicians bring to these races, it becomes a barrier to
entry for local leaders to emerge and represent their communities. In the 2013 composition of the
city government, seven of the fifteen Los Angeles City Council members had previously served in
the California Assembly (Zahniser 2013). Today, the Los Angeles City Council has eight former
state legislators serving. The cause of this high rate is possibly in relation to legislation passed in
California in 1990 under Proposition 140, which imposed term limits that had previously not existed
in the state’s government. By 2004, all members of the state legislature who were in office prior to
voters setting limits to their continued service in state office were forced to leave their seats
(Wheeler 2010). With higher state or national office as the only traditional path of progress in a

7

political career, there were limited places for politicians to move on from the legislature. A law
intended to limit career politicians and encourage citizen politicians at the state level may have
unintentionally created the opposite dynamic in the local government of the city of Los Angeles,
with former state legislators finding the city’s council an attractive next political office to compete
for. Through the analysis of campaign contribution data, the study will also seek to understand the
interplay of previous experience as a state legislator and the geographic origin of campaign
contributions in influencing election outcomes. With career politicians from the state legislature
running for many of the seats on the council, it is essential to understand if these candidates are truly
supported by the communities they represent or instead are leveraging pre-existing political donor
networks to secure votes in elections.

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY
This study aims to inform the citizens of Los Angeles and others interested in the
functioning of American democratic campaign finance, how modern elections work, and how
winners are ultimately elected. This understanding of the role of money, most notably money from
people the elected official will not represent, provides the context needed to drive society’s debate
on the subject forward. Understanding how local elections in Los Angeles work provides direct
knowledge of the politics of a specific major city in the United States. It also reflects on the values,
norms, and structures that permeate American politics at every level.
Elections consist of votes cast within a jurisdiction for candidates competing to represent a
geographic area’s residents in a governmental body. The votes can only come from individuals that
live within a specific voting area, but the funding for the election can come from anywhere in the
United States. Due to the outsized importance that fundraising has on the outcomes of our electoral
system, it is important to consider the impact that outside funding has on influencing the results of

8

elections. External funding in this study describes political candidate funding coming from
individuals, political committees, or private businesses that send a donation from outside the district
or city and are therefore not directly represented by the candidate.
In the modern telecommunications age, where money can flow across borders
instantaneously, communities must understand the role of geographically distant donations in
influencing local election outcomes. The conflict between geographical limitations to voting and the
freedom for funds to flow from anywhere in support of candidates deserves a deeper analysis. Local
elections were chosen for this study because of the clearly defined geography which binds the
representative and the represented. Where a federal elected official's policies impact the entirety of
the United States, even if only elected by one region, it is rational that individuals geographically
distant from an election would have personal interest in donating to a campaign. In contrast, local
municipal officials do not have direct political power over individuals outside the district or city.
Those legislator proposals or votes only directly impact the district or city in question. This
differentiation clearly defines representation at the local level as being more limited in scope than
state or federal office. As ever-increasing amounts of money are needed for candidates to be
competitive in political elections, it is crucial to understand where those funds come from (Gross &
Goidel 2001). If representative democracy is to perform by its ideals, the represented must
determine their leaders without undue external influence.
Campaign finance at every level of government is a complex institution within United States
politics. Money is treated as free speech by the United States Supreme Court and its use unlimited in
many scenarios, which has significant implications on campaign spending levels (Buckley v. Valeo,
1976). With the advent of the internet, the world has become more interconnected than ever, with
the ability to communicate and move money through time and distance as never before experienced
in human history. Ultimately, our democracy should be determined by the will of those represented.

9

If it is determined that non-represented campaign financiers influence local election outcomes, this
provides a platform for future debate on campaign finance reform. For democracy to function
effectively, we need citizens to both have a strong understanding of and be engaged in the political
process.

RESEARCH QUESTION AND STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS
This study asks the question, while controlling for incumbency or former state legislature
experience, do Los Angeles City Council candidates who receive greater financial support from
outside of Los Angeles perform better in primary elections? As such, the study hypothesizes that
out-of-city external campaign funding to candidates relates to higher vote totals and thus electoral
victories.

OUTLINE FOR THE REMAINDER OF DISSERTATION
This dissertation is divided into four remaining chapters. Chapter II is a review of the
literature pertaining to electoral outcomes and campaign financing. Next, Chapter III defines the
methodology used to complete the study. Chapter IV describes the results of the analysis conducted
on the data. The last chapter, Chapter V, summarizes the study in which implications of the findings
are discussed and elaborated.

10

Chapter II: Literature Review
This literature review covers the topics of territorial borders, democratic self-determination,
and modern campaign finance. The chapter begins by covering the origins of governmental
boundaries and related concepts that informed the drafting of the United States Constitution,
followed by a review of past literature on factors that influence campaign finance, including a
discussion on the development of political action committees. The chapter concludes with a focus
on local elections and Los Angeles.
ORIGINS OF TERRITORIALITY AND THE SOVEREIGN STATE SYSTEM
The borders used to define all levels of government in the United States are a human
construct based on traditions formalized through the establishment of the international system.
Since the inception of the Westphalian international system, the concept of the sovereign state has
existed through a series of European treaties in the 17
th
century. Sovereign states control a specific
territory, which is not to be interfered with by other sovereign powers (Kissinger 2014). The states
within the U.S. come from this same organizational tradition but have given up some of their
sovereignty to a federated form of central government. Territorial man-made boundaries were
established as the defining element for state power and its respective authority within its boundary.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution used this tradition of territorial boundaries with unique laws
and sovereignty in designing the United States. These new states would relinquish some sovereignty
to a centralized federal government, however they would retain specific authority over their territory
which could not be interfered with by those outside the region. This model was implemented within
localized governmental bodies, including counties, precincts, and other territorial boundaries, which
were divided to represent areas of authority over all the lands within a jurisdiction. The United
States' entire political system is designed this way, with authority that remains with the city, county,

11

or state to make and enforce laws. Though a superior level of government may interfere and
supersede the regulations within a lower jurisdiction, except when constrained by the U.S.
constitution, a vital concept of this political design is that neighboring jurisdictions should not
influence territory outside their own. The relations between different jurisdictions within the U.S. is
a product of rules established by European states and their system of bound authority. Today, in the
U.S., representatives from its citizenry are elected through the tabulation of votes to legislate and
administrate the territories it has carved out between the federal government, states, and
municipalities.
Territory and authority cannot be separated. “A final ingredient of sovereignty is
territoriality, also a feature of political authority in modernity. Territoriality is a principle by which
members of a community are to be defined. It specifies that their membership derives from their
residence within borders. It is a powerful principle, for it defines membership in a way that may not
correspond with identity. The borders of a sovereign state may not at all circumscribe a 'people' or a
'nation' and may, in fact, encompass several of these identities, as national self-determination and
irredentist movements make evident. It is rather by simple virtue of their location within geographic
borders that people belong to a state and fall under the authority of its ruler. It is within a
geographic territory that modern sovereigns are supremely authoritative."
4

In 1762, shortly before the birth of the United States as an independent nation-state in the
international system, The Social Contract was written. According to its author, Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
political power resided with the people to deliberate and by majority vote, come to resolutions. The
idea was that those that governed only did so by ‘the consent of the governed’ in what amounted to
a social contract (Rousseau & Frankel 1947). This writing and others by philosophers like
Montesquieu and Locke were fundamental ideas to the drafters of the U.S. Constitution.

4
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sovereignty/#DefiSove

12

Fundamental rights about freedom, property, and representative government were established. With
the establishment of the U.S. Constitution as the law of the land, with society transferring power to
representatives running the government through consent, the founding document further
established rules that are based on previous ideas of absolute governance linked primarily to
territorial boundaries. Article 4, section 4 of the United States founding document establishes that
every state in the union shall use a republican form of government. Additionally, the 15
th

amendment establishes that every citizen has the right to cast votes in the system independent of
race, color, or previous condition of servitude. A republic is defined as a form of government in
which a state is ruled by representatives of the citizen body. The sovereignty of the state rests with
the people that elect the leaders. The concept of a republic comes from ancient Rome. In 509 B.C., a
Roman king was overthrown, and the world’s first republic established, in which citizens elected
representatives to rule and set policy (Crawford 1978). Today’s political workings were built upon
these initial concepts and human designs. As a society, we have further evolved these frameworks to
create the system in use throughout the United States today, at all levels of government, local, state,
and federal.
Next, a brief view of the financial methods used to elect political leaders to office will be
covered. It is a system in which politicians rely on private funding to finance their electoral
campaigns. The next section will discuss the topic further.

MODERN AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND CAMPAIGN REGULATION

The underpinning of modern political campaigns in the U.S. is that candidates seek private
contributions to their campaign for office, which are used to finance the promotion of the candidate
and the administration of the effort. In the American tradition, any citizen can present themselves to
run for public office by meeting minimum requirements, typically tied to living within the territory

13

being represented, and often a minimum age. Getting a candidate’s name on the ballot for an
election is not difficult; it is merely an administrative task that can be accomplished by following
specific instructions. The political campaign and the promotion of the candidates is the competitive
and complicated part of elections. It is through the process of fundraising, making public
statements, endorsements, media references, and advertisements that a candidate seeks to earn the
vote of the residents of an area.
Because of the political systems’ reliance on private funding, those with wealth that seek to
influence policy have the tool of financially supporting candidates for election to public office,
independent of whether they have the geographic designation to vote for the candidate. When
looking at national participation rates in political and civic activities, it was reported that affluent
donors make up only 4% of voters but contribute 35% of campaign funding (Verba et al., 1995).
Because of the common notion that campaign donations influence politicians' decision-making, calls
from the public over the years for increased transparency in election funding have pressed
policymakers to enact federal, state, and local laws that regulate campaign contributions to
candidates. The first campaign finance legislation was passed in 1867, prohibiting Federal officers
from requesting contributions from Navy Yard workers. The next century saw continued legislation,
including the Tillman Act of 1907, that began the process of prohibiting corporations and banks
from directly donating to Federal campaigns. The laws tended to control campaign spending, limit
contribution amounts from donors for each election, and mandate candidates' disclosure of specific
details relating to the source of the donation.
5

Since the 1970s, with increased access to campaign financing records due to its regulation,
researchers could more easily assess this foundational element of our democratic system. Academic
research on local elections has for many decades focused on the composition of local governing

5
Federal Election Committee. https://transition.fec.gov/info/appfour.htm

14

coalitions in elections using a political economy paradigm. This view of city-level power has been
summarized as an "intimate relationship between local elected officials and real estate interests that
is a hallmark of U.S. local government, wherein developers are the largest contributors to municipal
campaigns” (Fainstein 1994). Research was conducted on the central role that landowners and
developers play in local politics through the examination of the property-based capital and the land-
related development interests that drive local politics (Molotch 1976). The campaign contributions
of developers that do business within a city are logical in the sense of a genuine interest tied to both
geography and the outcome of an election. Both developers and other local businesses have a vested
interest that ultimately affects their earnings and livelihoods. In any local election, one would expect
significant campaign funding from these sources.

POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEES AS FINANCING TOOLS
Beyond the individuals and businesses that donate to candidates, organizations, unions,
political parties, and other politicians contribute political funds to electoral campaigns. A couple of
significant events for the current state of campaign finance were decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo established that political financing is protected by the right to
free speech. Next, the court’s 2010 decision established that corporations, including some types of
nonprofit corporations, may fund political advertising in opposition to or in support of candidates.
The Supreme Court determined that groups and individuals can spend unlimited money
independently on elections as a form of free speech, which the U.S. Constitution protects. Though
speech is protected for independent advertising, laws have been established to limit the amount of
direct campaign contributions per race that individuals and organizations can give. Throughout U.S.
history, campaign finance reform has targeted campaign contribution limits to make elections more
equitable and temper the financial dominance of those with financial means in shaping electoral

15

outcomes. Political Action Committees (PAC) have emerged as a method for candidates and
political parties to get around these campaign contribution limits. The basic rule is that there is no
coordination between the candidate and the PAC, while the PAC can raise unlimited funds to
support the candidate as a means of free speech.
The first PAC was formed in 1943 to contribute to President Roosevelt's reelection, which
was used to bypass the Smith-Connally regulation in place that had been used to limit the influence
of Union money that had been pouring into election campaigns during the New Deal era. The PAC
allowed for 'separated segregated funds', which circumvented the rules established by congress years
earlier. By disassociating funding dedicated to supporting or opposing candidates from campaigns,
rules that limited campaign contributions could be avoided. By organizing political campaigns in
parallel to the candidate’s own, unlimited spending could now be used to influence elections by
private citizens with means. Initially, it was labor unions attempting to keep congressional allies of
Roosevelt in office, but the business community eventually began increased usage of the campaign
financing tool in the 1940s. The public questioned PAC legitimacy for many years. Even so, through
the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), a legal framework was established to allow the
organizations to continue and grow in influence. FECA was strengthened in 1974, with corporations
and unions having established limitations on campaign donations directly to parties or candidates.
Public financing was made available for candidates willing to reject money available through PACs.
The irony of what was considered a strengthening of campaign finance rules in the U.S. limited
individuals' ability to contribute and strengthened PACs' usefulness in raising ever-larger campaign
budgets.
Attempts at reforming political spending laws, going back to the 1970s, have never been
successful, even though calls of corruption and unethical behavior are voiced through the media and
politicians themselves (Powell 2012). As beneficiaries of the system that finances them, politicians

16

seem little inclined to limit these funding activities through changing the law (Holyoke 2014). An
interesting dynamic to consider is how easily PACs can be formed and that often much of the
advertising purchased for highly competitive races is contributed by PACs that were created less
than a month before the election and have names that are entirely vague as to their origin or
contributors (Camden 2001).
Even as additional laws are passed to regulate campaign finance, through limits to
contributions, workarounds are found and used, ever-increasing the money pumped into elections
across the United States. In Florida, where limits were put on PAC donations of up to $1,000 per
election cycle, instead of controlling finances, it just led to a ballooning in the number of PACs
formed to get around the imposed limits (Leary 2008). It is significant to reiterate that much of the
PAC funding is not a donation directly to the candidates and instead is used as independent
expenditures in favor of or against candidates. In states like California, which have low contribution
limits, we see that PACs increase independent expenditures and contributions to political parties
(Hogan 2005).
Going back to 1980, it was stated that PACs "create a problem for representative
government. These centralized institutions compete with local constituents, including those who
supply resources, for the attention of public officials." These campaign financing mechanisms have
"heightened already serious distortions in American politics" (Adamany 1989). Even though PACs
are an institution designed to directly influence political outcomes in district races, even in the
absence of any geographic ties to the election, past findings have found a relatively weak impact on
the results of localized elections (Wright 1989). More recently, it has been found that campaign
spending does not appear to be restrained by campaign finance limits in gubernatorial races, as
independent expenditures ever increase the funds used to deliver political messaging (Bardwell
2003). For the purpose of this study, all campaign contributions that come from political committees

17

will be referred to as PAC contributions. The use of independent expenditures by PACs is an
important dynamic within elections and has an impact. Unfortunately, because PACs are not
required to provide the same level of detail about the original sources of their funding as the
campaign is required to, their independent expenditures were not measured for geographic origin, as
is the purpose of this study.

CAMPAIGN FINANCING
Not all races are equal in their nature. Depending on different characteristics of the race,
more or less money can flow into a specific election campaign. Some campaign research has focused
on the strategic behavior of political donations. Election results often favor the incumbent
candidate, with challengers winning less often than those running to keep their current office. Past
studies have shown that incumbents receive the greatest share of votes in city council elections
(DeSantis & Renner 1994, Prewitt 1970). Beyond votes received, incumbency advantage also exists
in the amount received through campaign fundraising. Due to this incumbent advantage in most
races, incumbent candidates receive the lion’s share of donations, which may imply that donors are
more likely to give to candidates they think will win a race in the hopes of gaining influence with the
elected official. Evidence of incumbency bias in receiving the majority of donations has been shown
at the local level over decades (Adams 2010, Krebs 1996). If campaign donations are an investment,
it would seem logical to make contributions strategically to the candidates most likely to win.
Additional campaign finance literature also focuses on the 'investment' made into candidates by
individuals seeking access to power. These findings show that most monetary donations typically go
to incumbents and majority party candidates in open-seat elections. Similar to local elections, this
incumbent advantage has been highlighted in federal and state elections as well (Alexander and
Corrado 1995; Gaddie 1995).

18

Federal focused studies looking at U.S. House of Representatives races found that
challengers' spending increased the percentage of votes attained. In contrast, increased spending by
incumbents had no discernable impact on votes received. In his research, during the 1970s and
1980s, Gary Jacobson concluded that challenger spending is more effective because of their lack of
name recognition and a need to communicate a message to voters through media channels.
Meanwhile, incumbents benefit from free media coverage and an existing relationship with
constituents (2004). A 1989 study in Cincinnati city-wide elections found a relationship between
candidates' total votes and spending, showing diminishing returns as candidates spent funds past a
certain threshold (Lieske 1989). Additional researchers have added to this argument by highlighting a
non-linear relationship between campaign spending and votes received, showing diminishing returns
as expenditures increase (Gerber 2004). This study will measure the incumbent advantage in relation
to the geographic origins of campaign donations.
Studies have shown that spending in open-seat elections is generally higher than when an
incumbent is running for reelection (Bonneau 2005, Krebs 1998). These open-seat elections bring
more money into races because of the absence of incumbent advantage and the increased
opportunity for any candidate to succeed. City characteristics also have an impact on fundraising and
spending. Cities that are smaller or have limited economic power do not typically attract large
amounts of campaign fundraising. When looking at population size, diversity, cost of living, election
schedule, type of government, and several other variables, a statistically significant increase in
spending is found in cities where the scope of municipal government is large, there is a mayor and
council system, and longer mayoral terms exist. In other words, the more 'important' the office is
seen to be, the larger the campaign spending. The city's traits positively correlate to increased
spending and could make the offices more attractive to candidates. Of note is that election timing,

19

including off-cycle elections, does not seem to impact spending significantly (Weinschenk &
Holbrook 2014).
Throughout history, we see that an incumbent, who runs for election while currently holding
the seat, is likely to win the election. There are exceptions to this generalized finding, where a
political newcomer can upset an incumbent in an election, but generally, this rule holds true. Political
science studies have presented the electoral advantage of incumbents (Hirano & Snyder 2009).
Others have examined the relationship between interest groups and incumbent support (Baron
1989, Hall & Deardroff 2006). The data indicate that large amounts of funding go to those who win
elections, typically the incumbent candidate. For the purposes of this study, we consider former state
legislators that are not incumbents to have similar characteristics and advantages to those that
incumbents have. Past research on city council fundraising in Chicago and Los Angeles confirmed
that fundraising is critical to winning elections and attempted to evaluate the degree to which a
candidate’s political experience related to fundraising. Prior experience and political endorsements
relate to higher fundraising totals, which in turn leads to better electoral outcomes. ‘Between 1989
and 1999, (for) city council candidates in Chicago and Los Angeles… in 90 percent of the 48
contested races in each city’s most recent primary, the candidate who raised the most money also
was the top vote getter’ (Krebs 2001).
Fleischmann and Stein (1998) carried out a study that looked at donation patterns for
municipal elections in St. Louis and Atlanta. This study was a comparative case study between the
two cities. Both cities were similar in having roughly 400,000 residents at the time, surrounded by
areas of suburbs. The government structure, political culture, and local economy were all different
between the two municipalities. The study's primary goal was to see if earlier research claiming that
development interests were the dominant players in local campaign finance was accurate. Key
findings from their study included the following:

20

1) There was a wide range of business interests that contributed, not just those involved in
development;
2) Atlanta was seen to be an elite-driven campaign with limited small donation amounts. On
the other hand, St. Louis did rely on many small donations to finance the city races;
3) Both cities exhibited the incumbency advantage that is found in studies at the state and
federal levels; and
4) Money gravitated toward powerful offices and safe candidates.

An ideal democratic system should have the majority of financial support for any candidate
coming directly from the constituents within a district. This would indicate support by the region's
inhabitants, who the elected official is responsible for. At the federal level, past studies show that
this is not the case. For instance, “the average member of the House (of Representatives) received
just 11% of all campaign funds from inside the district,” with a small number of metropolitan areas
dominating the contributions (Baker 2016). The trend is worse when looking at the Senate. Even
though U.S. senators have a larger constituent donor pool from which to seek donations than house
members, the trend of out-of-district funding rates is even greater in these state-level races
(Mackinson & Goldstein 1994). These indicators undermine the idea of territorial self-
determination, as is the supposed intent of our electoral system. Our political system was framed
with geographical boundaries being the measurement from which to differentiate the self-
governance of groups, as laid out by James Madison in the Federalist Papers when discussing factions
that lived in separate places and hence had different wills and desires based on local situations
(Fontana 2017). Funds that come from individuals that cannot vote in elections stand in conflict
with the self-determination of an area’s residents.

21

Geographically bound contributions from those represented are stronger in local elections,
as seen in the 2013 Seattle municipal elections, which found that 73% of contributors resided in
Seattle, 20% with an address somewhere else in Washington state, and 7% from elsewhere in the
U.S. (Heerwig & McCabe 2019). In the cities of St. Louis and Atlanta, it was found that 16% came
from within the district, 64.5% from within the city, 11.8% from the suburbs, 2.4% from other parts
of the state, and 4.5% from out of state (with the origin of 0.9% unknown) (Fleischmann & Stein
1998). A robust study on local campaign finance by Adams (2010) assessed a variety of cities,
including New York-NY, Los Angeles-CA, Chicago-IL, San Francisco-CA, Louisville-KY, Seattle-
WA, Long Beach-CA, Sacramento-CA, and Lexington-KY. The researcher collected election data
on these cities between 1993-2006, analyzing a total of 741 races in which a total of 2,879
competitive candidates were assessed. Analysis of contributions coming from within or outside a city
showed Long Beach and Los Angeles had the lowest rate of in-city donations, while Seattle and
Chicago had the highest rates of in-city funding, as seen in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: Geographic Distribution of Contributions in Selection of U.S. Cities

City % in
City
% in
Suburbs
% Out of
Metro
Area
%
Unknown
New York 69.7 18.7 7.7 3.9
Los Angeles 52.9 33.5 12.5 1.1
Chicago 73.9 19.9 5.3 0.9
San Francisco 58.9 21.2 12.7 7.2
Seattle 76.9 17.4 5.1 0.6
Long Beach 51.8 34.9 12.6 0.7
Sacramento 64.3 18.1 13.2 4.4
Lexington 65.9 6.5 20.6 7.0
Average 64.3 21.3 11.2 3.2
*Excludes independent expenditures (Adams 2010)

The data show that most out-of-city donations come from surrounding suburbs, with fewer
funds coming from outside the metropolitan area. In Adams’ attempt to look at the Los Angeles
districts, they coded using Zip Codes to determine if a contribution was sourced from within the

22

district. Because zip codes and districts do not align, if any portion of a zip code fell within the
district, it was counted as 'from the area.' Findings showed that only 21% of Los Angeles City
Council race donations came from within the district area. The study found that many Los Angeles
campaign contributions came from wealthy regions that were not represented but were neighboring,
such as Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Bel Air. Especially in the more impoverished areas of East
Los Angeles, candidates were not receiving the majority of contributions from their constituents and
were seeking funding elsewhere in the region. Income levels are a significant driver of disposable
income to donate to candidates. Very few candidates can form a coalition of low-earning individuals
to finance their campaigns, with most individual campaign contributions coming from high-earning
individuals. Candidates from more prosperous districts raise more from their constituents. The
general earnings of contributors were determined by using median income census data in
conjunction with the geographic source of a contribution.

FUNDRAISING COALITIONS

Ultimately, a successful candidate needs to recruit coalitions of both voters and financial
supporters to succeed (Krebs & Pelissero 2001). The Adams study additionally looked at the use of
'fundraising coalitions' by different candidates. Fundraising coalitions were defined as both the
product of active solicitation of donations by candidates as well as independent choices that donors
make in concern of whom they will support. For this portion of the analysis, PAC independent
expenditures were aggregated into a candidate's fundraising coalition because of the assumed
alliance, even if coordination is not legally allowed between the groups and campaigns. Each
election’s funding characteristics are unique, with different overall campaign spending amounts and
coalitions forming depending on the year and the candidates. Sometimes competing candidates
receive funds from many of the same sources, while other times, the candidates' funding sources

23

contrast. For example, one candidate could have business and real estate interests as significant
sources of contributions, while another candidate may rely mainly on unions. Adams' findings
showed that mayoral races tended to have more pluralistic and broad funding from more diversified
sources than city council races. City council candidate data show that sometimes a candidate would
be majorly financed by a single-interest group. Still, these funding situations were outliers, with only
4.4% of all city council candidates receiving more than half of their campaign contributions from a
single interest group.
Findings show that most campaign contributions come from individual donors in elections,
with most donations coming from more affluent higher-earning individuals. In the 2013 Seattle
municipal election, only 1.49% of the voting age population made political contributions compared
to the 39.06% that voted in the election. By mapping out Seattle’s mean income census data with the
source of donations, this study confirmed other findings where wealthy neighborhoods were vastly
overrepresented as the funding source of the city’s candidates. This tells us that candidates rely on
the funds raised from a small percentage of donors that provide the vast majority of the funding. In
the 2013 election, only 9% of donors donated at least $500, yet their contributions accounted for
40% of the money raised by the average candidate (Heerwig & McCabe, 2019).

CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS IN LOS ANGELES
The city of Los Angeles has a mayoral and city council structure city government. The city is
divided into 15 city council districts in which about half the seats are up for election every four
years. In 2015, Los Angeles voted to change the city council election cycle to line up with
presidential elections in an attempt to increase voter participation. Because of this change in election
cycles, the city council members elected in 2015 were given a five-year term to sync to the new
election cycle. The city of Los Angeles last had its district mapping changed in 2012 and will again

24

have a newly redrawn map established in 2022 using the latest U.S. Census data. The period of 2013-
2022 provides the most recent city council boundaries with which to measure the geographic source
of Los Angeles city district donations.
The literature review has presented a foundational framework through which to interpret the
data collected in this study. Past research and history establish that governments exist under a
framework that is entirely bound to territory and geography, both in its conception and organization.
We understand that votes and representation are tied to geographical boundaries, yet campaign
donations do not adhere to this framework. Past research has also shown that different
characteristics of a race or city will impact the overall spending levels, business, and political interests
play a large role, and incumbents receive the lion’s share of all contributions, typically winning the
elections. PACs have emerged as a tool of “free speech” and are evolving each election cycle, ultimately
distorting campaign advertising so that it is difficult for the average voter to understand the source
of the propaganda. Past studies on local elections have shown that most funding comes from the
city itself. With this understanding, we next look at the methodology used in this study to measure
the geographical influence of campaign contributions in Los Angeles local elections.
This study investigates whether individuals that do not have the right to vote in an election
interfere with the integrity of the territorial bound representation of a defined municipality. If true,
this would contrast with the ideal of outcomes being determined solely by the voters of a specific
territory. Territoriality is the basis of all modern political organization throughout the international
system, down to local governments. This study builds upon past research to investigate if trends
have altered in recent years. Through the collection of Los Angeles campaign contribution data for
city council races, this study seeks to understand how the geographic sourcing of donations impacts
primary electoral outcomes while accounting for how former state legislators or incumbent
candidates influence these patterns.

25

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

This study is an objective assessment of the relationship between campaign financing and
vote totals in Los Angeles City Council elections over a 7-year period between 2013 and 2020.
Publicly available data were compiled and statistically analyzed to explain the impact the
geographical sourcing of candidate campaign contributions has on electoral outcomes in a city
council primary race, with a particular focus on understanding the role of constituent and non-
constituent donations in electoral outcomes. Archival records collected from the Los Angeles
County Registrar and Los Angeles Ethics Commission were utilized to determine the geographic
origin of each candidate donation received, and multiple regression was used to evaluate the
relationship between donation origins and percentage of votes a candidate received in an election.
Through analysis of electoral data for 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2020 Los Angeles City Council
elections, different geographical sources of campaign contributions are investigated as plausible
causal factors of electoral outcomes.

DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES
The primary data used for this study were election results and campaign contribution
records. Official election results were collected from the Los Angeles County Registrar-
Recorder/County Clerk. Additionally, campaign contribution candidate disclosure records provided
by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission were used to identify campaign contribution amounts
and the zip code pertaining to the donor’s geographic locality. Both governmental organizations
make the data used in this study publicly available online. All Los Angeles City Council primary
elections held since council boundary redistricting was conducted in 2012 were assessed in this
study. Primary elections were chosen for the analysis because they are the most open to political
newcomers and therefore competitive.

26

Each candidate that appeared on the ballot for a Los Angeles City Council primary race was
used as a unit of analysis for this study, with a total of 136 candidates participating in these races
between 2013-2020. Some candidates became incumbents running in multiple elections and thus
appeared as multiple units of analysis in this study.

DEPENDENT VARIABLE
The dependent variable explained by this study is the percentage of votes attained by a
candidate in a particular council district primary race. Data related to electoral outcomes were
collected from the Los Angeles County Registrar, providing the number of votes each candidate
received in a city council primary election. A candidate that receives over 50% of the votes in a
primary directly wins election to office. If no candidate wins 50% or more, the two candidates with
the highest percentage of votes proceed to a run-off in the general election for the city council
office. This study does not measure the outcome of runoff elections or the funds raised by
candidates beyond the date of the primary election.

EXPLANATORY VARIABLES

The explanatory variables of the study were the percentage of campaign contributions raised
by each candidate from each of the five geographic categories defined for this study. The categories
are:
1) in-district (district);
2) within the city of Los Angeles, but not from the city council district (city);
3) within the county of Los Angeles, but not from the city of Los Angeles (county);
4) within the state of California, but not from the county of Los Angeles (state); and
5) national contribution not from the state of California (nation).

27

Campaign contributions come from individuals or organizations, and in each election there
is a monetary limit for each donor, with the most recent limit set at $800. The geographic category
from which a campaign contribution was received was defined by the zip code associated with that
contribution. A candidate’s total funds raised from each geographic region were divided by the total
campaign funds raised by all candidates that appeared on the election ballot in that district race. The
percentage of funds raised by a candidate from each region was chosen as the appropriate measure
because it eliminates the problem that inflation causes in comparing nominal dollar values over a
period. Additionally, using percentage as a measurement standardizes the amount of money raised
by candidates in a given race over the period, thus allowing for a valid comparison. To summarize,
the explanatory variables in this study are measured as the percentages of the total campaign
contributions – received by all the candidates in each city council district race – that a candidate
received from each of five geographical regions. The goal is to examine whether the percentage of
votes received by candidates is influenced by the geographical source of their campaign
contributions.

CONTROL VARIABLES

Two variables were used for control in this study, which assessed if a candidate had
previously served in the California state legislature, and whether the candidate was an incumbent.
There are a total of 10 individuals that previously served in state office and then ran for Los Angeles
City Council during the study period. These former state legislator candidates bring a pre-existing
network of campaign funding to the city council district races that are of interest to this study.
Additionally, as discussed in the literature review, past research shows that the incumbent has a very
high level of advantage in any political race. These control variables were included in the geographic
multivariable regression.

28

DATA CODING
The postal code associated with each campaign contribution was used to assign the donor’s
geography for this study. To accomplish the coding of data, each postal zip code within the United
States was assigned a corresponding value of nation, state, county, city, or district. For the assignment of
the city and district zip codes within the city of Los Angeles, depending on the district in which the
election was held, contributions were assigned the appropriate Los Angeles based geographical
designation. For visual reference, the two figures below display zip code mappings and the city
boundaries. Figure 2 displays a map of zip codes in the Los Angeles metropolitan. Figure 3 displays
the 15 city districts and their boundaries. The Los Angeles zip code mapping to city districts used in
this study was defined by the City of Los Angeles in 2013 and displayed in Figure 4.

6
https://www.usmapguide.com/california/los-angeles-zip-code-map/
Figure 2: Los Angeles Zip Code Map

6

29

Figure 3: Los Angeles City Boundaries and Council District Map 2012–2022
7

7
https://clerk.lacity.org/clerk-services/rmd/map
SAN DIEGO
MAIN
PICO
WESTERN
VICTORY
AVALON
VENTURA
FOOTHILL
SUNSET
GOLDEN STATE
ALAMEDA
FIGUEROA
CRENSHAW
VANOWEN
ROSCOE
SLAUSON
OLYMPIC
WILSHIRE
FLORENCE
7TH
ROSECRANS
BALBOA
TAMPA
VENICE
LA BREA
GLENOAKS
VERMONT
WASHINGTON
HOLLYWOOD
ANAHEIM
DEL AMO
GAGE
RESEDA
GARFIELD
PRAIRIE
SANTA MONICA
ALONDRA
CHERRY
LAKEWOOD
190TH
SANTA ANA
SATICOY
MAR
TOPANGA CANYON
LAKE
NORDHOFF
BURBANK
1ST
BEVERLY
LINCOLN
MAGNOLIA
DE SOTO
CENTURY
SOTO
223RD
OCEAN
ATLANTIC
VAN NUYS
BELLFLOWER
GLENDALE
WILMINGTON
COLORADO
PARAMOUNT
MANCHESTER
EL SEGUNDO
WILLOW
WOODMAN
FIRESTONE
AVIATION
HARBOR FRWY & TRANSIT WY
LOMITA
SEPULVEDA
RINALDI
DEVONSHIRE
CULVER
PACIFIC COAST
RONALD REAGAN
VALLEY
WHITTIER
VERNON
SANTA FE
SHERMAN
ANZA
CENTRAL
CANOGA
MELROSE
FAIRFAX
SOUTH
3RD
WINNETKA
OLIVE
GARDENA
SAN FERNANDO
VINELAND
GAFFEY
LAUREL CANYON
LANKERSHIM
NORMANDIE
RODEO
CARSON
LONG BEACH
9TH
YORK
GRAND
GLENN ANDERSON FRWY & TRANSIT INGLEWOOD
MOORPARK
PASADENA
SAN PEDRO
CHEVY CHASE
25TH
PACIFIC
SUNLAND
PALOS VERDES
TEMPLE
SPRING
HUNTINGTON
EASTERN
LOS ROBLES
BROADWAY
MULHOLLAND
BIG TUJUNGA CANYON
54 ANGELES CREST
2ND
CHATSWORTH
MARINA
TORRANCE
COMPTON
4TH
HAWTHORNE
WHITE OAK
OSBORNE
LOS FELIZ
MISSION
VALLEY CIRCLE
BUNDY
LOWE
REDONDO
LA CIENEGA
VERDUGO
LA TUNA CANYON
VINE
REDONDO BEACH
BANDINI
TWEEDY
TELEGRAPH
CENTINELA
FALLBROOK
CESAR E CHAVEZ
ROBERTSON
LITTLE TUJUNGA
PLATT
SHELDON
VICTORIA
POLK
ALVARADO
BUENA VISTA
CATALINA
MANHATTAN BEACH
ANGELES FOREST
SAN VICENTE
FREMONT
ZELZAH
BRAND
JEFFERSON
SAN BERNARDINO
FAIR OAKS ALTADENA
103RD
CALIFORNIA
NATIONAL
OXNARD
WESTWOOD
LINDA VISTA
BROWNS CANYON
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR
LUKENS
SAN FERNANDO MISSION
STOCKER
OCEAN PARK
WENTWORTH
DALY
LA TIJERA
EAGLE ROCK
CREST
IMPERIAL
CAHUENGA
CANADA
MACLAY
TERMINAL ISLAND
GARVEY
SILVER LAKE
FOX
HERRERES
BP & L
ABBOTT
TRUMAN
HOOVER
GOLD CREEK
SIERRA
JOHNSON
TUXFORD
PALO SOLO
6TH
POMONA
LAS VIRGENES
EXPOSITION
MADRONA
BURTON
ALAMITOS
GLEASON
LOS COYOTES
LOMA ALTA
LORENA
ARROYO
ATHERTON
ORANGE GROVE
HERMOSA
BARHAM
HONOLULU
PLUMMER
GREENWOOD
WOODLEY
*****
LOPEZ CANYON
WEBB
YERBA BUENA
LA CRESCENTA
RIGGIN
26
LA LOMA
ANITA
FRANKLIN
VINCENT THOMAS
MONTEREY
RIVERSIDE
HIGHLAND
NEILSON
FLETCHER
WARDLOW
HARBOR
PALISADES BEACH
BEVERLY GLEN
PARTHENIA
BRIDGE
OCEAN VIEW
37TH
JOHN S GIBSON
COLTRANE
GRIZZLY FLATS
CABRILLO
HARRY BRIDGES
EDISON
MARENGO
CHANEY
POEMA
LAS LLAJAS CANYON
ARTESIA
GATEWAY
COLDWATER CANYON
MARIANNA
CONOVER
THE OLD
MARILLA
SEASIDE
VESPER
ROSSMORE
LIVINGSTON
SHEPARD
PERSHING
LAKE MANOR ORO VISTA
BEVERWIL
MISSION
FIGUEROA
SANTA MONICA
SAN FERNANDO
CAHUENGA
HIGHLAND
HARBOR FRWY & TRANSIT WY
WASHINGTON
SAN VICENTE
MISSION
COMPTON
SEPULVEDA
BEVERLY
MAR
*****
ARTESIA
ALAMEDA
RIVERSIDE
GARDENA
SANTA FE
TERMINAL ISLAND
EASTERN
*****
BRAND
SHERMAN
VICTORY
WESTERN
SAN FERNANDO
*****
7TH
SPRING
HOLLYWOOD
CARSON
CENTINELA
MULHOLLAND
*****
LINCOLN
CENTRAL
BEVERLY
PLUMMER
SAN DIEGO
GLENN ANDERSON FRWY & TRANSIT
SHERMAN
PLUMMER
HIGHLAND
ARTESIA
6TH
CALIFORNIA
PASADENA
OSBORNE
JEFFERSON
9TH
*****
SHERMAN
OLYMPIC
PACIFIC
FAIR OAKS
RONALD REAGAN
MAIN
VERDUGO
ARTESIA
FOOTHILL
MAIN
CENTURY
*****
3RD
SHERMAN
CENTRAL
GOLD CREEK
WILMINGTON
GLENDALE
PACIFIC
LONG BEACH
PACIFIC
GARFIELD
SANTA ANA
LONG BEACH
MISSION
HAWTHORNE
*****
PACIFIC COAST
SHERMAN
SAN PEDRO
SANTA MONICA
t u
1 0 1
% & '
5
· | } þ
8 11
% & '
0 12
· | } þ
071
% & '
5 04
( /
101
· | } þ 01 1
% & '
01
% & '
0 11
· | } þ 09
% & '
5 01
12
7
7
3
6
2
4
5
11
10
13
8
14
11
9
15
Streets Copyright © 2011 Rand McNally & Co.
Pacific Ocean
1
1
15
% & '
5
% & '
5
% & '
5 04
% & '
0 11
4
5
LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCIL BOUNDARIES
EFFECTIVE JULY 02, 2012 PER ORDINANCE NO. 182168
Gary Lee Moore, P.E.
City Engineer
NOT TO SCALE
4
Copyright © 2012 City of Los Angeles
Prepared by :\BOE\GIS MAPPING DIVISION : 08/2012
This shall not be copied or reproduced, all or any
part thereof, whether for distribution or resale, without
the prior written permission of the CITY ENGINEER

30

Figure 4: Los Angeles City District to Zip Code Mapping

8

9

Electoral results were recorded in tables with information on electoral race, candidate, number of
votes received, and percentage of votes received. Campaign contribution data included contribution date,
contributor zip, candidate, district-office, contribution type, and amount received. Contributions are either
donated to an individual running for district office or to a current district office holder running as an

8
Zip code mapping provided by E. Johnson, Mapping and Land Records Division, Bureau of Engineering (Sept. 4, 2013) ‘Using a zip
code map overlay, a council district has been defined that lies completely within (a zip code’s) boundaries, as well as (zip codes)
estimated to fall geographically 50% or more within the district boundary or where the majority of population within falls within a
district boundary.’
9
In the mapping provided by the city of Los Angeles one zip code, 90008, appeared in two separate council districts. Zip code 90272
was missing from District 11and added back for the purpose of this study.

31

incumbent. For each race, funds received on any dates following a primary election date were
removed from the analysis. This was done to eliminate any donations that could be associated with a
later runoff election and create an equal measurement basis for all participants in a primary election.
All candidates that received contributions but did not appear on the ballot for the election were also
removed from the data set. Only monetary contributions were included, with all other contribution
types removed, including loans, miscellaneous cash increases (except those associated with
donations), non-monetary contributions, matching funds provided by the city of Los Angeles to
some candidates, self-funding by candidates, and unitemized items. Any contribution that did not
have a zip code associated with it was also removed. A small number of donations get returned to
the donor for a variety of reasons, with one scenario being that the donor exceeded campaign
contribution limits and had the difference returned to them. For these negative contribution amount
received records, both the negative entry and its corresponding positive amount (original contribution)
were deleted or balanced by matching the contributor’s name, date of contribution, and zip code.
The total records balanced in this manner were an insignificant number within the totality of the
data set.
The steps for preparing the contribution data sets from the Los Angeles Ethics Commission
can be summarized as follows:
a. remove all contributions received after the date of the primary election;
b. remove candidates not on ballot;
c. remove categories that are not donations (loans, matching funds, etc.; miscellaneous
increases to cash related to donations are kept);
d. removed ‘unitemized’ contributions; and
e. remove every negative entry and corresponding positive entry (returned donations).

32

With the data prepared in this manner, only the monetary contributions associated with a
primary election remain. Using the associated zip code, each contribution was assigned to one of
five geographical categories identified above. The contributions received by each candidate from
each geographic region were summed and then divided by the total contributions received by all
candidates in that council district race to provide the percentage of funds raised by each candidate in
that race from each geographic category.

DATA ANALYSIS
The collected data were analyzed using a data science tool for ordinary least squares
regression to assess the relationship between the percentage of funding raised by a candidate from
each geographic area and the percentage of votes the candidate received in the primary election. The
analysis is multivariate, with five geographic funding variables and two control variables included to
evaluate their relationships and thereby address the question, do Los Angeles City Council candidates
receiving greater financial support from outside the city of Los Angeles receive a greater percentage of votes in primary
elections? The following chapter describes the results of the analyses.

33

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS
The statistical analysis of this study consists of an ordinary least squares regression assessing
the relationship between the percent of funds raised by political candidates from five different
geographical regions and the percentage of votes received by candidates in a Los Angeles City
Council primary election. Campaign contributions were summed by geographical regional source to
determine the percentage raised by each candidate from the district, city, county, state, or nation. The
percentages of funds raised by candidates in each geographic region were used to assess their
correlation to the percentage of votes received.

CANDIDATE FINDINGS
During electoral cycles between 2013 and 2020, a total of 30 Los Angeles City Council
election races were held, with each district administrating two elections during the study period. This
study measured the performance of 136 candidates for those city council seats, of which 22
candidates won the primary outright with over 50% of the vote and did not need to participate in a
general election runoff. Incumbent candidates ran for reelection in 19 of the 30 total elections, with
113 unique individuals presenting themselves during the period of these elections. A total of 36
female and 77 male candidates presented themselves for election to city council office. The data
showed that 16 of the primary races had former California state legislators running for a city council
seat, and in each case, this candidate won the primary.

FUNDRAISING AND ELECTION FINDINGS

Monetary contributions to city council candidates measured in this study over the period
showed significant growth. In the 2013 election cycle, a total of $3.5 million in donations was raised

34

by all competing candidates. This amount had nearly doubled to $6.5 million in the 2020 election
cycle. Figure 5 displays the breakdown of donations between individual donors, business and private
organization contributions (Other: Non-Individual), and PAC donations. Individuals are the largest
and growing portion of contributions to the Los Angeles City Council elections. Business (and other
organizations’) contributions are somewhat flat, ranging around $1 million over the period of the
study, while PACs show a relatively small portion of donations yet are growing significantly over the
period.

Figure 5:

Source: Los Angeles Ethics Commission

Of specific interest to this study is the breakdown of contributions by geographic category.
Figure 6 displays that most funding comes from the city and county of Los Angeles. All geographic
categories show a growing trend over the course of the study.

$0
$500,000
$1,000,000
$1,500,000
$2,000,000
$2,500,000
$3,000,000
$3,500,000
$4,000,000
$4,500,000
$5,000,000
2013 2015 2017 2020
Total Contributions by Contributor Type
Individual Other: Non-Individual PAC

35

Figure 6:

Source: Los Angeles Ethics Commission

A trend observed over the period of this study showed a large disparity in election funding
between the top performing candidate and everyone else that runs for the same office. When
looking at the data over the four-election cycle, we see that the winning candidates receive
significantly more contributions from all geographic categories compared to their most competitive
challenger. Beyond the top-two candidates, the remaining competing candidates’ fundraising rates
decrease dramatically. After the second-best performing candidates in each race, the remaining
competitors in any given race raise very little to no money. Figure 7 below shows the average funds
raised by both the first and second-place candidates by geographic category. A large percentage of all
funding for the elections goes directly to the winning candidate and comes from the city but outside
of the district of the election, ranging from 25-39% during the period of the study. The second most
$0
$500,000
$1,000,000
$1,500,000
$2,000,000
$2,500,000
District City County State Nation
All Candidate Funds Raised by Geography
2013 2015 2017 2020

36

significant portion of funding going to the primary winners comes from the remainder of the county
of Los Angeles, ranging from 17-24% of all funding.

Figure 7:

*Unopposed candidates excluded

In Figure 8 below, we see the average funds raised for different categories of candidates
during the study period, in which 26 of the 30 elections saw an incumbent or former state legislator
win the primary election. Results show that these advantageous candidate characteristics on average
lead to a range between $180,000-$800,000 raised compared to $30,000-$100,000 for the most
competitive second-place challengers.
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
35.0%
40.0%
45.0%
1st Place 2nd Place 1st Place 2nd Place 1st Place 2nd Place 1st Place 2nd Place 1st Place 2nd Place
Average Percentage of Contributions Raised
by Top Two Performing Candidates by Geography
2013 2015 2017 2020
City County State Nation
District

37

Figure 8:

The full Los Angeles City Council primary election dataset used for the regression has been
organized below in Figure 9, displayed over the next few pages. We can see that the top candidates’
fundraising advantage displayed throughout. The election results are listed chronologically, with
candidates in order of votes received. Listed are the candidate, percentage of votes received, and percent of
election funds raised from district, city, county, state, and nation.

$0
$100,000
$200,000
$300,000
$400,000
$500,000
$600,000
$700,000
$800,000
2013 2015 2017 2020
Average Funds Raised by Incumbents,
Former Legislators, and Challengers
Incumbent State Legislator Challenger

38

Figure 9: Los Angeles City Council Election and Fundraising Results

2013 Results
Council District 1
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Cedillo 49.3% 3.0% 19.9% 19.1% 11.7% 1.6%
Gardea 43.5% 6.7% 17.6% 13.2% 4.5% 2.2%
Rosas 7.2% 0.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 3
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Blumenfield 51.9% 4.1% 29.1% 11.9% 10.4% 4.3%
Pearson 20.0% 4.6% 5.2% 4.3% 1.7% 3.2%
Iaccino 9.6% 3.6% 4.6% 1.3% 1.8% 0.7%
Badger 9.3% 1.3% 3.5% 0.4% 0.3% 1.6%
Presberg 4.7% 0.0% 0.1% 0.9% 0.0% 0.9%
Silverstein 4.4% 0.1% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 5
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Koretz 74.7% 20.0% 41.2% 28.7% 6.4% 3.7%
Herd 25.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 7
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Fuentes 51.4% 1.4% 34.7% 14.7% 28.2% 9.0%
Chase 27.2% 2.7% 3.1% 2.2% 0.0% 0.0%
Clark 10.8% 0.0% 0.4% 0.3% 0.1% 3.3%
Barron 10.6% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 9
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Price 26.8% 0.2% 12.6% 6.5% 3.9% 0.9%
Cubas 24.5% 0.3% 8.2% 6.5% 2.4% 1.1%
Davis 15.4% 0.1% 4.0% 2.3% 1.0% 0.1%
Hara 11.5% 0.3% 12.1% 14.4% 5.4% 0.9%
Roberts 9.9% 0.8% 7.5% 6.0% 0.8% 0.6%
Gochez 8.6% 0.1% 0.5% 0.5% 0.1% 0.0%
Aldana 3.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 11
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Bonin 61.8% 27.8% 27.8% 16.0% 5.7% 4.4%
Hess 17.5% 1.4% 2.0% 2.5% 0.6% 1.2%
Sutton 11.7% 4.0% 2.7% 1.0% 0.7% 0.2%
Bostick 9.0% 0.9% 0.3% 0.3% 0.0% 0.3%

39

Council District 13
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
O'Farrell 18.8% 3.6% 2.8% 0.4% 0.1% 0.1%
Choi 16.7% 0.4% 13.7% 8.5% 3.9% 2.0%
Kbushyan 11.4% 0.3% 3.7% 1.7% 0.1% 0.1%
Ocampo 11.0% 0.6% 5.4% 4.0% 1.8% 2.1%
Post 10.8% 0.5% 1.9% 1.4% 2.5% 0.4%
Szabo 7.3% 1.0% 5.7% 2.8% 1.3% 0.4%
Negrete 7.1% 1.2% 1.3% 2.5% 0.8% 0.2%
Pescador 6.4% 0.0% 0.5% 0.5% 0.2% 0.0%
Sigala 3.6% 0.4% 1.6% 2.2% 1.1% 0.2%
Mack 3.5% 0.1% 4.9% 4.2% 1.3% 0.3%
Schaefer 1.9% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Haraldson 1.5% 1.0% 1.0% 0.4% 0.4% 0.3%

Council District 15
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Buscaino 83.1% 14.9% 29.9% 38.1% 9.7% 7.5%
Law 16.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

2015 Results
Council District 2
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Krekorian 74.7% 9.7% 47.5% 26.3% 9.5% 5.7%
Preven 25.3% 0.3% 0.3% 0.4% 0.0% 0.2%

Council District 4
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Ramsay 15.3% 9.3% 4.9% 2.2% 0.5% 1.2%
Ryu 14.6% 4.5% 7.9% 7.3% 4.1% 1.0%
O'Grady 14.3% 2.1% 1.3% 0.5% 0.0% 0.1%
Knox 11.0% 2.6% 4.9% 3.2% 1.0% 0.4%
Davis 10.9% 1.8% 3.0% 1.2% 0.4% 0.8%
Veres 9.9% 2.0% 6.0% 5.7% 2.6% 0.3%
Irani 7.6% 1.1% 0.4% 0.3% 0.1% 0.0%
Pelico 5.8% 1.2% 2.7% 2.1% 0.4% 0.4%
Beeber 4.5% 0.2% 0.2% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2%
Sarkissian 2.3% 0.1% 0.5% 0.4% 0.1% 0.2%
Bannister 1.2% 0.4% 1.3% 1.4% 0.9% 0.6%
Schaefer 1.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Mariscal 0.8% 0.6% 0.6% 0.6% 0.1% 0.1%
Jones 0.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 6
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Martinez 60.9% 3.4% 48.8% 17.9% 6.1% 4.8%
Montanez 39.1% 0.7% 10.2% 5.5% 1.9% 0.7%

40

Council District 8
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Harris-
Dawson 61.2% 4.3% 32.9% 18.8% 5.7% 1.8%
Cole 14.9% 4.3% 4.9% 4.2% 0.9% 2.0%
Hogan-
Rowles 12.7% 2.8% 2.5% 3.9% 1.2% 0.8%
Anderson 11.2% 1.7% 3.8% 2.7% 0.6% 0.4%

Council District 10
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Wesson 63.5% 8.5% 43.1% 22.9% 8.5% 4.5%
Yoo 29.5% 2.0% 5.0% 2.9% 0.9% 1.6%
Smith 7.0% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 12
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Englander 100.0% 18.3% 39.9% 22.0% 12.8% 7.0%

Council District 14
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Huizar 65.8% 11.3% 29.4% 31.3% 6.8% 5.4%
Molina 23.9% 1.6% 4.8% 6.1% 1.1% 0.4%
Diaz 4.4% 0.0% 0.1% 0.4% 0.1% 0.0%
Chavez 3.6% 0.3% 0.3% 0.1% 0.2% 0.0%
O'Neil 2.3% 0.0% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.2%

2017 Results
Council District 1
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Cedillo 49.3% 8.3% 37.6% 26.2% 14.1% 5.2%
Bray-Ali 38.0% 3.4% 2.6% 1.1% 0.4% 0.2%
Hernandez 8.5% 0.2% 0.4% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1%
Rosas 4.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 3
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Blumenfield 100.0% 7.7% 55.3% 19.9% 10.7% 6.4%

Council District 5
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Koretz 65.9% 16.6% 27.3% 20.5% 5.1% 3.3%
Creed 30.5% 8.3% 8.3% 5.1% 1.2% 4.4%
Herd 3.7% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

41

Council District 7
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Rodriguez 27.8% 2.0% 24.8% 12.8% 6.2% 1.6%
Torossian 16.5% 0.9% 19.4% 11.8% 3.0% 1.4%
Ratliff 14.2% 0.3% 3.2% 1.9% 0.1% 1.0%
Miner 8.1% 0.7% 0.6% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0%
Gibson 6.2% 0.6% 0.3% 0.6% 0.0% 0.0%
Martinez 5.3% 0.0% 0.7% 0.5% 0.3% 0.1%
Ayala 4.3% 0.3% 0.3% 0.1% 0.1% 0.0%
Flores 3.9% 0.2% 0.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Chase 2.7% 0.6% 0.7% 0.5% 0.2% 0.0%
Lara 1.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Clark 1.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Reed 1.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Schaefer 1.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Saunders 1.2% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Becerra 1.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Barron 1.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Higginson 0.8% 0.5% 0.1% 0.4% 0.0% 0.0%
Gomes 0.7% 0.0% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Castillo 0.6% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Corwin 0.6% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 9
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Price 63.0% 2.8% 47.8% 27.7% 13.8% 3.9%
Nuno 23.0% 0.6% 1.2% 1.3% 0.4% 0.1%
Cabrera 14.0% 0.1% 0.2% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 11
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Bonin 71.0% 28.5% 29.8% 22.0% 7.2% 4.0%
Ryavec 15.7% 4.7% 0.0% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0%
Rudisill 13.3% 2.9% 0.2% 0.0% 0.1% 0.2%

Council District 13
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
O'Farrell 59.3% 13.1% 45.8% 23.1% 7.1% 4.5%
Shain 15.1% 1.2% 2.0% 0.5% 0.0% 0.3%
Salans 13.6% 0.3% 0.3% 0.1% 0.2% 0.0%
de la Torre 5.3% 0.2% 0.4% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0%
Haines 3.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Zide 2.9% 0.3% 0.0% 0.5% 0.2% 0.1%

Council District 15
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Buscaino 74.9% 12.6% 32.3% 27.6% 11.1% 15.3%
Arnold 16.5% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Gould 8.7% 0.4% 0.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

42

2020 Results
Council District 2
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Krekorian 66.7% 8.1% 43.1% 31.1% 10.1% 7.6%
Melendez 19.8% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Jones 13.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 4
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Ryu 44.7% 13.4% 28.1% 24.6% 7.7% 4.8%
Raman 41.1% 2.7% 4.8% 1.3% 0.2% 1.5%
Levy 14.2% 2.9% 3.8% 1.6% 0.5% 2.0%

Council District 6
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Martinez 71.9% 3.7% 54.8% 22.7% 10.8% 7.6%
Bernal 15.6% 0.0% 0.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Haller 12.6% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Council District 8
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Harris-
Dawson 100% 3.2% 48.8% 30.7% 11.2% 6.1%

Council District 10
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Ridley-
Thomas 44.3% 5.6% 32.7% 24.9% 7.4% 3.2%
Yoo 23.6% 2.6% 8.2% 4.5% 1.4% 1.2%
Vasquez 21.0% 0.6% 2.4% 1.2% 1.1% 1.2%
Snell 6.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Martinez 5.0% 1.2% 0.4% 0.2% 0.0% 0.1%

Council District 12
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
Lee 50.6% 19.2% 19.2% 11.9% 8.9% 2.6%
Lundquist 49.4% 8.6% 14.9% 8.1% 4.1% 2.5%

Council District 14
Candidate Percent
Votes
District
Financing
City
Financing
County
Financing
State
Financing
National
Financing
de Leon 52.6% 7.7% 22.3% 26.4% 15.9% 3.7%
Ottesen 19.5% 1.4% 1.1% 0.8% 0.4% 0.0%
Zamora 13.6% 0.4% 0.2% 0.3% 0.1% 0.1%
Garcia 11.0% 1.6% 8.1% 7.9% 1.3% 0.4%
Jimenez 3.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

43

REGRESSION RESULTS

Multiple linear regression was initially performed on the control variables of the study to
understand their impact on the percent of votes received by a candidate without the influence of
campaign contributions. Results show that candidates with previous state legislature experience and
incumbent candidates were statistically significant in explaining the percent of votes received (R
2
= .71,
F = 165.9, P < 0.001). With about a 71% strength in explaining the variability of the candidate data,
the control variable candidate characteristics are found to be statistically significant in predicting
election performance. When looking at the explanatory value of each variable on its own, the results
show that incumbent (b = .48, P < 0.001) and state legislator (b = .21, P < 0.001) are both highly
significant. The next regression tested if the percent of campaign contributions sourced from the
geographic categories of district, city, county, state, and nation significantly predicted the percent of votes
received by Los Angeles City Council candidates. The overall regression of this model increased
statistical significance (R
2
= .88, F (df = 7,128) = 132.0, P = <0.001), with three of the variables
being significant predictors of votes. It was found that district sourced contributions significantly
predict percent of votes (b = 1.03, P < 0.001); city sourced contributions significantly predict percent of
votes (b = 0.98, P < 0.001); and nation sourced contributions significantly predict percent of votes (b =
1.37, P < 0.05). Campaign contributions sourced outside of Los Angeles city, from county and state
were not statistically significant, but the donations that come from geographically further away than
the state of California, from the rest of the nation, do predict a strong electoral performance with a
95% confidence level. Lastly, when running a regression on donations that came from inside or outside
the city limits of Los Angeles, the regression model is significant (R2 = .88, F (df = 4,131) = 231.4,
P < 0.001), as are the two coefficients for contributions from inside Los Angeles (b =1.005, P < 0.001)
and from outside Los Angeles (b = .354, P = 0.012). In specifically answering the question, ‘do Los

44

Angeles City Council candidates receiving greater financial support from outside of Los Angeles perform better in
primary elections?’, the hypothesis was supported.

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER
In summary, this study’s regression model shows that 88% of the variance in vote totals was
explained by the combined set of predictor and control variables. This is a 17% election
performance explanatory increase over the control variables of incumbency and previous service in the
state legislature. Running as an incumbent or professional politician having served in the state
legislature is strongly related to vote totals on their own. But when the geographic funding variables
are also included in the regression, the effects of incumbency or state legislation disappear, indicating
that those two variables don’t impact vote totals directly but only as mediated through raising more
money. With the strong election performance associated with raising large amounts of money, the
variables of campaign contributions sourced from the geographic regions of district, city, and nation
are found to be statistically significant in predicting candidate performance, while those sourced
from county and state are not significant in their impact. When looking at funding that comes from
either inside or outside the city of Los Angeles, candidates that raise funds from both categories are
significantly predicted to win elections. The next chapter is a discussion of the results, their
implications, and recommendations.

45

CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION AND EVALUATION

DISCUSSION
In the United States political system, the self-determination of communities is achieved
through the election of an individual to represent a geographically defined population in municipal
government. If the winners of elections are determined by anyone other than the represented
citizens, then democracy would not be true to its ideals. For democracy to flourish in a way that is
reflective of direct representation, communities must have a deeper understanding and control of
the systems that elect their local leaders. The data collected for this study has been analyzed based
upon concepts of democracy and governance tied to specific territorial boundaries. This research
aims to provide a data-based discussion on the financial influences that determine democratic
outcomes, presenting information that is easily interpreted and provides a platform for further
discussion and debate.
Analyzing the data from Los Angeles City Council races between 2013 and 2020 has
provided the following seven findings:
1) Candidates with strong financial support sourced within the city of Los Angeles are
statistically predicted to get more votes in Los Angeles City Council elections;
2) Financial support sourced from outside Los Angeles city but within the state of California is
not statistically significant in predicting votes attained;
3) Financial support sourced from outside of California is a statistically significant variable in
predicting votes attained in elections;
4) Incumbent candidates and state legislators are highly predicted to achieve larger percentages
of votes in elections, largely due to their advantage in raising more campaign funds;

46

5) Money is the key factor in vote totals, regardless of other variables. Raising large amounts of
money on its own is extremely predictive in explaining high vote counts;
6) The majority of all city council campaign donations come from geographically near the city;
7) Most campaign contributions go to a select few candidates. The data show that on average
the top candidate is outperforming the second-place candidate by 550% in fundraising.
In answering the study’s question of how the geographic source of campaign donations
impacts the performance of candidates in Los Angeles local elections, the data show that those
candidates that raise the greatest amounts of funding within the district and the city of Los Angeles
perform best. Fundraising sourced from the rest of the county of Los Angeles is not significant in
predicting votes attained by candidates, nor are donations from the rest of the state of California.
Lastly, national donations, which are the most geographically distant from the area of representation,
are statistically significant in predicting victories, with donations sourced from outside the state of
California indicating a larger percentage of votes will be received in a district race. Candidates that
raise the most funds from either inside or outside the city of Los Angeles are predicted to win.
The finding that Los Angeles City Council members are elected with strong financial support
from within their districts and the rest of the city of Los Angeles is a positive one. This is an ideal
condition that maintains a geographic relationship between financial support, voters, and those
being represented by the city government. The support for the candidates is territorially bound and
proximate to the area of representation, even if not solely from those that can vote for the
candidates. Even with this geographic proximity of most campaign funding, the data reveal that
those that win Los Angeles city council elections are candidates that have a national profile, with
contributions sourced from outside the state of California. The data indicate that even with the large
amounts of money raised inside the city proper, for success, a candidate’s network and popularity
must be great enough that individuals far removed from the city provide financial support. Though

47

Los Angeles is unique and a large global megacity, this is an interesting finding when considering the
limited scope of local elections and representation.

IMPLICATIONS AND CONTRIBUTION TO PRACTICE
The study confirms that incumbents and former state legislators, as candidate characteristics, are
statistically significant in explaining primary election wins. Out of 30 races, there were 26 in which
candidates with one or both characteristics won the primary election, with only four races in which
no candidate possessed either of those characteristics. In addition, this confirms past findings of
these characteristics leading to higher levels of campaign funding. During the period of this study
there were no occurrences in which a political challenger was able to outspend or defeat an
incumbent or former state legislator. In the four instances where none of those competing had the
advantageous candidate characteristics, the winning candidate always raised the lion’s share of
money in that race and on average raised 34% of all the elections campaign funding in what were
more competitive races with more candidates presenting themselves. The study’s explanatory
variables indicate that if a candidate can raise more funds than their competition, they will likely gain
higher vote totals in elections. This highlights the central role that money has in local elections and
exhibits the barrier to entry in Los Angeles politics. The typical community leader will not be able to
compete in an election without well-established funding networks in place, though with enough
money, this type of ‘outsider’ does stand a chance to win an election. One interpretation is that as a
society we equate the skill of fundraising with other positive leadership qualities, as well as viability
as a candidate.
With the original questions of the study answered, further observations were made from the data
that do not directly relate to geography yet are significant and worth discussion. For instance, the
observation has been made that the winning candidates are receiving a much higher percentage of

48

monetary donations, relative to their competition, in races for city council office. The candidates
that do not win are raising significantly less money than those that win. When looking at the data, it
becomes apparent that the campaign fundraising contest for Los Angeles City Council is
uncompetitive. Winners are outraising their closest competitors by almost six times on average. A
second observation has been made that most donations come from individuals, not private
organizations or PACs. Again, this is a positive finding in that individuals drive financial political
campaign support instead of relying heavily on unions, business, and other political interest
donations. Yet this somewhat positive finding is overshadowed by the fact that almost all the
campaign money goes to a select few. The data regression shows that funding is an important
predictor of success in these elections, which means that these elections are mostly non-competitive
contests in Los Angeles.
This study set out to measure the health of geographically bound representation in local
politics. Despite some reassuring findings in support of democratic ideals, such as strong localized
financial support and geographic proximity between the financiers and the represented, other
findings are less positive. Money’s outsized role in determining winners is ultimately limiting voters’
choices and has the potential to both further empower those with resources and silence those
without them. The amount of funding a candidate receives for their campaign is statistically
significant in determining electoral outcomes; having the most funding is a strong predictor of
winning a city council election. As campaign financing growth outpaces inflation at high rates, the
system implies a potential for abuse by the powerful and elites within society. These findings put
into question the democratic ideal that a local candidate can go door-to-door through their district
with the goal of meeting voters and earning votes. Though this ideal can seem old-fashioned, when
it comes to a local election where only thousands of people are voting, it should be possible to
campaign in this fashion. The traditional idea of local grassroots campaigning becomes futile when

49

this study tells us that it is a better strategy to tap into large funding networks than to meet and
create personal relationships with the voters within a community. Raising and spending money is a
better strategy to win, even in a local election. This system limits participation by its design.

INDEPENDENT EXPENDITURES
Through the process of conducting this study and gaining a deeper understanding of funding
dynamics, further questions have arisen on the impact that independent spending from PACs is
having in these local elections. The one-sided uncompetitive nature of campaign finance that is
discussed in this analysis is only compounded by the additional financial might introduced through
independent campaign expenditures of PACs. Furthermore, the political advertisements seen by
voters are often difficult to distinguish between a PAC sourced political ad or those funded directly
by candidate campaigns. This study focuses on measuring donations made directly to city council
candidates because it composes most of the political funding and allows for geographic analysis. The
advertising in support of or against candidates sponsored by PACs exists in parallel during the
campaigns but was not possible to measure for geographic origin. Through first-hand review of the
Los Angeles Ethics Commission’s public data on PAC expenditures and relevant documentation,
the sources of these funds are extremely complicated to trace and assign a geographic source.
Independent expenditure data is not reported or made available in a similar manner as campaign
contribution data. Even when manually reviewing PAC records submitted to the Los Angeles Ethics
Commission, it is often not possible to trace the original source of funds beyond a committee of a
different name. Performing the geographical source model regression used in this study on
independent PAC funds used for political advertisements is not a feasible task for the scope of this
project. The source of PAC money in these elections was mostly reported to be sourced from other
PACs, in a system that is moving money around between committees in an opaque fashion. The

50

ultimate source of independent expenditure is only discernable through rigorous investigation. What
is easily available to analyze are the total amounts spent on behalf of or against candidates through
independent expenditures.
Figure 10:
*Unopposed candidates excluded Source: Los Angeles Ethics Commission

Figure 10 displays the amount of PAC money being spent on behalf of or against the two top
candidates in Los Angeles City Council primaries between 2013 and 2020. The data show that on
average, the winning candidate has an additional $200,000-$500,000 in campaign advertising spent
on their behalf in addition to their own campaign money. The second-place candidate on average
only has $54,000 in support, and the trend shows the rate is dropping each election cycle, with only
an average of $30,000 in support in the most recent elections. For the amounts shown in the PAC
independent spending analysis, any opposing spending was assigned to the opposite candidate’s
total. The data shows that the majority of funding benefits the winning candidates. This PAC
$0
$50,000
$100,000
$150,000
$200,000
$250,000
$300,000
$350,000
$400,000
$450,000
$500,000
2013 2015 2017 2020
Average PAC Expenditures
on Behalf of Top Two Candidates
1st Place 2nd Place

51

funding, on top of what was already a one-sided advantage, brings a concerning feature of modern
politics into sharper focus.
Figure 11 below highlights the uncompetitive nature of city council elections by comparing the
average direct campaign contributions made directly to the top two candidates with the PAC money
spent on behalf or in opposition to the top two candidates during the study period. The blue bars
display the average first-place candidates’ primary campaign contributions and average PAC
spending on their behalf or in opposition to their challenger
10
. The orange and yellow bars display
the second-place candidate's average campaign contributions and PACs spending on their behalf or
in opposition to the winning candidate during the study period. The comparison is an extraordinary
example of capital's role in electoral outcomes. The trend shows that the delta between those that
win elections and those that challenge them grows wider each election cycle. The funds needed by
political newcomers to compete in an election were already seen to be a giant barrier when not
considering independent political expenditures, but when PAC spending is taken into consideration,
it shows an insurmountable advantage created for the political fundraising elites. Over the period of
the study, financial support for second-place candidates shrunk significantly while the independent
expenditures for first-place candidates exploded in growth. PACs are a tool that can be used to
undermine democracy and determine winners in local elections by those with the resources to do so.
The geographic sources of the funds raised by the PACs are murky and often more difficult to
determine, making them a powerful tool for non-represented individuals to influence electoral
outcomes. Future research related to this topic will need to address independent expenditure
geographic sources to understand better the role of non-constituents in determining electoral
outcomes.

10
The Los Angeles Ethics Commission requires that PAC based independent expenditures be reported as in support of or against
specific candidates, as per reporting requirements.

52

Figure 11:

*Unopposed candidates excluded.
**Independent expenditures cover both primary and general elections, while campaign contributions account for primary.
Source: Los Angeles Ethics Commission

The observations that have been made from the collected data that fall outside the original scope
of geographic sourcing of campaign financing are intriguing. The primary observation is that on
average the winning candidates received 75% of all the campaign contributions donated to the
competing candidates in an election. What on the surface often looks to be a competitive race
between two top candidates is anything but competitive when the fundraising amounts are assessed.
The second observation, as discussed, is that PAC independent spending is more significant than
their direct campaign contributions. When originally designing this study, the author believed they
would find greater participation by PACs directly donating to candidate campaigns. This was not
true, and the data showed limited direct contributions by PACs to candidates. Because PAC
independent expenditures cannot easily be assigned a geographic origin, their spending was not
assessed in the study’s regression on electoral outcomes. Though the findings point to the majority
$0
$100,000
$200,000
$300,000
$400,000
$500,000
$600,000
$700,000
$800,000
2013 2015 2017 2020
Average PAC Expenditures Compared to Primary Campaign
Contributions of Top Two Candidates
1st Place Campaign 1st Place PAC 2nd Place Campaign 2nd Place PAC

53

of political funding coming from geographically near the city of Los Angeles, the imbalance in
funding between candidates is very concerning. It should be noted that because of the manner in
which PAC money is used and the difficulty in tracing its origin, we cannot be 100% sure that
geographically distant money is not having a significant impact on local election outcomes in Los
Angeles. What was already a large financial advantage by top candidates became massive once PAC
independent expenditures were also assessed. The spending amounts show one-sided support for a
select number of candidates. With this research confirming what many previous studies had already
found, that political fundraising is highly correlated to electoral victory, society should be concerned
that democracy in a major U.S. city is increasingly uncompetitive and favoring professional
politicians. Often, the winner has been determined through financial backing long before any votes
have been cast by the represented. The narrative sold to the public as freedom of choice in an
election is far from that ideal, and the concept of representative government continues to grow
hollow.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

This study has several limitations in its design. The attempt to measure the influence of
geographically distant funding on local elections was performed by using the address indicated with
the contribution. This is not an ideal measurement due to the unreliability of using an address to
identify the status of the donor. For instance, a business owner in Los Angeles may live in a nearby
county. These donors could have a direct interest in the representation of an elected official yet
have an address that is assigned state in the analysis. In a different scenario, there may be a union or
business with a national headquarters, where the donation comes from, but still have specific
interests in the district of the election. Because of the large dataset, the findings remain significant in

54

informing us about campaign finance, even with small imperfections in assigning every
contribution’s geography.
A second limitation of the study is that all contributor types were treated the same for the
purpose of the analysis. Individuals, organizations, and PACs are treated the same when measuring
their geographic origin, though they are fundamentally different sources of support. Organizations
cannot vote and instead represent the interests of individuals within the organization. This study
shows that PACs have a limited role in their direct contributions to candidates. This is because there
are limits to the amount a PAC can contribute to a candidate for each campaign. Where PACs have
a large impact is in the independent advertising that appears during election cycles. As mentioned
previously, in 1976, the Supreme Court ruled that independent expenditures from PACs can be
unlimited and are protected as free speech. Since this ruling, there has been an ever-increasing
amount of political advertising that circumvents campaign contribution regulations used as a tool of
political elites. This study failed to directly measure the impact of PAC independent expenditures on
these electoral outcomes. The finding related to direct campaign contributions produced by this
study are valuable, but future research requires an assessment of the geographic source of
independent expenditures conducted in parallel with direct campaign contributions.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The trends seen in Los Angeles local campaign finance show that campaign fundraising is
the most important indicator of electoral success. The advantage in fundraising that winning
candidates possess increasingly dwarfs the financing of those that attempt to compete against them.
Most would consider competition to be a healthy and necessary part of the political process, yet the
tendency in the maturing modern political system is increasingly uncompetitive. Democracy’s core
principle of geographic boundaries determining representation is a construct that should be used as

55

a pillar in reforming campaign finance to address this negative trend while also strengthening the
ideals of representative democracy. Los Angeles and the state of California have a history of
progressive reforms, making it a logical test case for changes to local campaign finance law. Laws
should be implemented that more closely tie the financing of elections to the represented. This
author suggests that reform be made that limits contributions to those that have a geographical link
to the city for which they donate political donations. Residents, as well as any individual that owns a
business in the city but lives outside, would have the right to donate, as would anyone that could
prove an organizational or personal link to the territory. Political action committees would be treated
in a similar manner. The ability to practice free speech remains, but the funding of political
advertisement should come from those that are geographically tied to the area of the election. This
would require the implementation of a reporting regime that is much more stringent for PAC
independent expenditures. PACs would now need to provide detail of individuals donating to the
PAC and the geographic source of the funding. Through the imposition of a stricter campaign
financing regime tied to territoriality, the most likely outcome will be more competitive races and a
greater opportunity for local leaders to emerge and represent their own communities based on the
support of those represented. Many of the same advantages that the rich have over the poor in
influencing elections would still exist but would be limited to the scope of the represented. This type
of reform could be used at the city level primarily because of the limited scope of territoriality and
the representative geography of a municipality. If successful at the local level, it could inspire future
reform at the state level of government. The goal is to limit non-constituent influence, thereby
creating more equitable elections and strengthening the voice of the least wealthy stakeholders in an
election. It would be a reasonable reform that could likely lead to similar outcomes but creates
opportunities that do not exist today while adhering to representative democratic ideals.

56

CONCLUSION

Throughout its history, the United States has witnessed increasing barriers to entry for
citizen representatives to compete in the democratic system through the function of political
financing. This is exemplified by the ability to run a competitive city council race in the city of Los
Angeles being out of reach for the typical candidate. Only well-funded candidates that intensely
focus on fundraising stand a chance of winning election to city council. This information is not
revolutionary and confirms what many members of society understand as the model of our political
system. The value of this study is in showing the scope of funding that is going to support
professional politicians in comparison to their closest competitors in local Los Angeles politics.
Awareness of the discrepancy and trend allows for genuine debate about the nature of the system.
Through raised awareness, we can begin an honest conversation about all levels of political workings
in the United States. Only with a true understanding can society decide to reform the system or
embrace it further. Without data, sound policy decisions cannot be made. The electoral system we
have now benefits professional politicians and limits competition. The greatest challenge is society’s
dependency on policymakers to create rules that are not in their own best interest, which decreases
the possibility of sensible campaign finance reform occurring. The political system needs
transformation in how campaigns are financed, but we are at the mercy of those that benefit from
this system to change it. This conflict of interest that exists for political parties and politicians should
be addressed if we aim to move toward the ideals that democratic representation promises. With the
increasing role of PACs, there is a challenge to the political power of the individual local voter. As a
society, we must ask ourselves what freedom of speech means? Who has the resources to practice freedom
of speech? And who are the individuals being presented as the limited choices to represent our
communities? Freedom of speech does not mean that those with financial wealth are the only ones

57

allowed to communicate. The assessment of this data is one small piece of a wider discussion on the
sustainability of democracy in the United States.

58

REFERENCES

Adams, B.E. (2010). Campaign Finance in Local Elections: Buying the Grassroots. First Forum Press.

Adamany. (1980). PACs and the democratic financing of politics. Arizona Law Review, 22(2), 569–602.

Albert, Z. (2017) Trends in Campaign Financing, 1980-2016 Report for the Campaign Finance Task Force
bipartisanpolicy.org https://bipartisanpolicy.org/download/?file=/wp-
content/uploads/2019/05/Trends-in-Campaign-Financing-1980-2016.-Zachary-Albert..pdf

Alexander, H. E., & Corrado, A. (1995). Financing the 1992 Election. M.E. Sharpe.

Baker, A. (2016, Aug 17) The More Outside Money Politicians Take, the Less Well they Represent their
Constituents. Washington Post.

Baron. (1989). Service-Induced Campaign Contributions and the Electoral Equilibrium. The Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 104(1), 45–72.

Bardwell. (2003). Campaign Finance Laws and the Competition for Spending in Gubernatorial Elections.
Social Science Quarterly, 84(4), 811–825.

Boatright, R. G. (2011). Interest Groups and Campaign Finance Reform in the United States and Canada.
University of Michigan Press.

Bonneau, C. W. (2005). What Price Justice(s)? Understanding Campaign Spending in State Supreme
Court Elections. State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 5(2), 107–125.

Bonneau, C.W. & Hall, M. (2009) In Defense of Judicial Elections. Routledge.

Bridges. (1997). Morning Glories: Municipal Reform in the Southwest. Princeton University Press.

Buckley v. Valeo, 424 (U.S. Sup. Ct. 1976).

Camden, J. (2001, Feb. 12) ‘PACs Made their Mark on Election; Decried by Many, Independent Groups
Move through Loopholes.’ Spokane Spokesman-Review.

Carnes. (2018). The Cash Ceiling: Why Only the Rich Run for Office - and What We Can Do About It. Princeton
University Press.

Crawford. (1978). The Roman Republic. Harvester Press.

DeSantis, V. & Renner T. (1994) Term Limits and Turnover Among Local Officials. Municipal Year Book,
1994. International City/County Management Association.

Fainstein, S. (1994) The City Builders: Property, Politics, and Planning in London and New York. Oxford.
Blackwell.

Fleischmann, A., & Stein, L. (1998). Campaign Contributions in Local Elections. Political Research
Quarterly, 51(3), 673–689.

59

Fontana, D. (2017). The Geography of Campaign Finance Law. Southern California Law Review, 90(6),
1247–1297.

Gaddie, R. K. (1995). Investing in the Future: Economic Political Action Committee Contributions to
Open-Seat House Candidates. American Politics Research, 23(3), 339–354.

Gerber, A. S. (2004). Does Campaign Spending Work?: Field Experiments Provide Evidence and Suggest
New Theory. The American Behavioral Scientist (Beverly Hills), 47(5), 541–574.

Gross, & Goidel, R. K. (2001). The Impact of State Campaign Finance Laws. State Politics & Policy
Quarterly, 1(2), 180–195.

Hajnal, Z. L., & Lewis, P. G. (2003). Municipal Institutions and Voter Turnout in Local Elections. Urban
Affairs Review (Thousand Oaks, Calif.), 38(5), 645–668.

Hall, & Deardforff, A. V. (2006). Lobbying as Legislative Subsidy. The American Political Science Review,
100(1), 69–84.

Heerwig, & McCabe, B. J. (2019). High-Dollar Donors and Donor-Rich Neighborhoods: Representational
Distortion in Financing a Municipal Election in Seattle. Urban Affairs Review (Thousand Oaks, Calif.),
55(4), 1070–1099.

Hirano, & Snyder Jr, J. M. (2009). Using Multimember District Elections to Estimate the Sources of the
Incumbency Advantage. American Journal of Political Science, 53(2), 292–306.

Hogan, R.E. (2005) State Campaign Finance Laws and Interest Group Electioneering Activities. Journal of
Politics. (67), 887-906.

Holyoke, T. (2014) Interest Groups and Lobbying: Pursuing Political Interests in America. Westview Press.

Jacob, D. (2015). Every Vote Counts: Equality, Autonomy, and the Moral Value of Democratic Decision-
Making. Res Publica (Liverpool, England), 21(1), 61–75.

Jacobson, G. C. (2001). The Politics of Congressional Elections (5th ed.). Longman.

Kissinger, H. (2014). World Order. Penguin Press.

Krebs, T.B. (1996). Predicting Campaign Contributions in Local Elections. Paper presented at annual
meeting of the American Political Science Association.

Krebs, T. B. (1998). The Determinants of Candidates’ Vote Share and the Advantages of Incumbency in
City Council Elections. American Journal of Political Science, 42(3), 921–935.

Krebs, & Pelissero, J. P. (2001). Fund-Raising Coalitions in Mayoral Campaigns. Urban Affairs Review, 37(1),
67–84.

Krebs. (2001). Political Experience and Fundraising in City Council Elections. Social Science Quarterly, 82(3),
536–551.

Leary, A. (2008, May 1). ‘Legislator Sidesteps Ban Against Fundraising.’ St. Petersburg Times.

60

Lieske, J. (1989). The Political Dynamics of Urban Voting Behavior. American Journal of Political Science, 33(1),
150–174.

Lutz, G., & Marsh, M. (2007). Introduction: Consequences of low turnout. Electoral Studies, 26(3), 539-
547.

Makinson, L. & Goldstein, J. (1994) The Cash Constituents of Congress. Congressional Quarterly.

Molotch. (1976). The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place. The American
Journal of Sociology, 82(2), 309–332.

Morlan. (1984). Municipal vs. National Election Voter Turnout: Europe and the United
States. Political Science Quarterly, 99(3), 457–470.

Piven, F. F., Cloward, R. A., & Piven, F. F. (2000). Why Americans Still Don’t Vote: and Why Politicians Want it
That Way ([Rev. and updated ed.]). Beacon Press.

Powell, L. W. (2012). The Influence of Campaign Contributions in State Legislatures: The Effects of
Institutions and Politics. University of Michigan Press.

Prewitt, K. (1970) The Recruitment of Political Leaders: A Study of Citizen Politicians. The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

Rousseau, & Frankel, C. (1947). The Social Contract. Hafner Pub. Co.

Smith, R. A. (2006). Money, Power & Elections: How Campaign Finance Reform Subverts American Democracy.
Louisiana State University Press.

Verba, Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics.
Harvard University Press.

Weinschenk, A. C., & Holbrook, T. M. (2014). The Determinants of Campaign Spending in Mayoral
Elections. State & Local Government Review, 46(1), 13–27.

Wheeler, M. (2010). Legislative Term Limits in California and the Faces of Change. University of Southern California.

Wright, J. R. (1989). PAC Contributions, Lobbying, and Representation. The Journal of Politics, 51(3),
713–7.

Zahniser, D. (2013, July 4). L.A. City Council Hot Destination for Former State Legislators. The Los Angeles
Times. https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2013-jul-04-la-me-new-council-20130705-story.html.

61

APPENDICES

STATISTICAL REGRESSION RESULTS

Appendix A - Control Variables

Control Variables OLS Regression Results
============================================================================
Dep. Variable: Percent of Votes R-squared: 0.714
Model: OLS Adj. R-squared: 0.710
Method: Least Squares F-statistic: 165.9
Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2022 Prob (F-statistic): 7.24e-37
Time: 00:34:02 Log-Likelihood: 85.328
No. Observations: 136 AIC: -164.7
Df Residuals: 133 BIC: -155.9
Df Model: 2
Covariance Type: nonrobust
============================================================================
coef std err t P>|t| [0.025 0.975]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
Intercept 0.1296 0.012 10.534 0.000 0.105 0.154
State Leg 0.2057 0.039 5.298 0.000* 0.129 0.283
Incumbent 0.4781 0.036 13.247 0.000* 0.407 0.550
============================================================================
Omnibus: 32.917 Durbin-Watson: 1.830
Prob(Omnibus): 0.000 Jarque-Bera (JB): 50.893
Skew: 1.208 Prob(JB): 8.88e-12
Kurtosis: 4.773 Cond. No. 4.11
============================================================================

62

Appendix B – Geographic Sources of Campaign Contributions

Geographic Source OLS Regression Results
============================================================================
Dep. Variable: Percent of Votes R-squared: 0.878
Model: OLS Adj. R-squared: 0.872
Method: Least Squares F-statistic: 132.0
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2022 Prob (F-statistic): 2.16e-55
Time: 22:59:59 Log-Likelihood: 143.48
No. Observations: 136 AIC: -271.0
Df Residuals: 128 BIC: -247.7
Df Model: 7
Covariance Type: nonrobust
============================================================================
coef std err t P>|t| [0.025 0.975]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intercept 0.0670 0.010 7.050 0.000 0.048 0.086
District 1.0292 0.218 4.715 0.000* 0.597 1.461
City 0.9775 0.164 5.961 0.000* 0.653 1.302
County 0.2567 0.245 1.050 0.296 -0.227 0.741
State 0.0896 0.413 0.217 0.828 -0.727 0.906
Nation 1.3748 0.692 1.986 0.049* 0.005 2.744
State Leg -0.0236 0.035 -0.679 0.499 -0.093 0.045
Incumbent -0.0094 0.046 -0.204 0.839 -0.101 0.082
============================================================================
Omnibus: 19.016 Durbin-Watson: 2.009
Prob(Omnibus): 0.000 Jarque-Bera (JB): 22.184
Skew: 0.918 Prob(JB): 1.52e-05
Kurtosis: 3.736 Cond. No. 101.
============================================================================

63

Appendix C – Contributions from Inside and Outside city of Los Angeles

Inside / Outside City OLS Regression Results
============================================================================
Dep. Variable: Percent of Votes R-squared: 0.876
Model: OLS Adj. R-squared: 0.872
Method: Least Squares F-statistic: 231.4
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 Prob (F-statistic): 2.38e-58
Time: 10:56:37 Log-Likelihood: 142.20
No. Observations: 136 AIC: -274.4
Df Residuals: 131 BIC: -259.8
Df Model: 4
Covariance Type: nonrobust
============================================================================
coef std err t P>|t| [0.025 0.975]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intercept 0.0679 0.009 7.203 0.000 0.049 0.087
In City 1.0046 0.139 7.244 0.000* 0.730 1.279
Out City 0.3539 0.139 2.549 0.012* 0.079 0.629
State Leg -0.0398 0.032 -1.248 0.214 -0.103 0.023
Incumbent -0.0006 0.044 -0.013 0.990 -0.088 0.086
============================================================================
Omnibus: 15.362 Durbin-Watson: 2.003
Prob(Omnibus): 0.000 Jarque-Bera (JB): 16.945
Skew: 0.790 Prob(JB): 0.000209
Kurtosis: 3.703 Cond. No. 25.3
============================================================================

Abstract (if available)

Abstract With technological advances and ever easier methods for transferring funds, campaign fundraising has increasingly nationalized in recent decades, even at the local level. At the same time, ever growing campaign spending has created barriers to entry for potential challengers to seek representative office against established politicians. This study aims to understand the influence that campaign donations sourced from areas not geographically represented had on the outcome of Los Angeles City Council primary elections between 2013-2020. Past research has shown that most local campaign contributions go to incumbent candidates and come from the municipality and surrounding suburbs. Using a methodology that categorized campaign contributions by geography, electoral success was measured in relation to the source of candidate financing while controlling for incumbency and previous state legislature experience. Though not the primary focus, this study also assessed data on independent political expenditures to understand their role in electoral outcomes. Most campaign contributions in Los Angeles City Council elections continue to come from the city, surrounding suburbs, and counties. The findings express that raising large amounts of money, both inside and outside the city is highly predictive of electoral victory. The delta in financial support between winning candidates and their closest competitors is large with a widening gap. Those winning elections are typically incumbents or candidates that previously served on the California state legislature. The data highlight a trend that is making Los Angeles local elections less competitive each election cycle.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Who pays for politics? a profile of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission and its proposal for full public funding of local election campaigns

PDF

Essays on fiscal outcomes of cities in California

PDF

Governing public goods: how representation and political power in local and regional institutions shape inequalities

PDF

Essays on mitigation, adaptation, and resilience to urban fiscal crises

Asset Metadata

Creator Micó Quinn, Brian A. (author)

Core Title Local votes and outside money: campaign contribution geographic origins and their impact on Los Angeles City Council election outcomes

School School of Policy, Planning and Development

Degree Doctor of Policy, Planning & Development

Degree Program Planning and Development,Policy

Degree Conferral Date 2022-12

Publication Date 09/17/2022

Defense Date 08/30/2022

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag campaign finance,city council,city government,contribution limits,democracy,election outcomes,external funding,former state legislators,geographic distribution of contributions,geographically bound representation,incumbent,independent political expenditures,local campaign finance,local elections,local politics,los angeles,Los Angeles City Council,municipal elections,OAI-PMH Harvest,PAC,political action committees,political funding,political funding networks,primary elections,representative government,term limits,territoriality,territorially bound financing

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Robertson, Peter (committee chair), Tsai, Mitchell (committee member), Wheeler, Matthew (committee member)

Creator Email brianmico@gmail.com,micoquinn@yahoo.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC111996066

Unique identifier UC111996066

Legacy Identifier etd-MicQuinnBr-11212

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Micó Quinn, Brian A.

Type texts

Source 20220917-usctheses-batch-981 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu